Coquelin Aine

Artist: Sem (Georges Goursat) French (1863-1934)

Title: Coquelin Aine

Plate: sem.01

Description: Condition A
Original Pochoir (Hand coloured) lithograph from "Celebrites Contemporaines et la Benedictine", by Sem.
Printed by Devambez, Paris ca.1900. 
Signed in the plate lower left.

French Text by Coquelin Aine at bottom reads, 
"When Cyrano recieved a Murderous Blow to save him, he needed a glass of Benedictine. 
Coqueline"

Presented in 16 x 20 in. acid free, archival museum mat, with framing labels. Ready to frame. Shipped boxed flat via Fedex. 
Certificate of Authenticity.

Sheet Size: 6 1/4 in x 9 1/2in 16 cm x 24.5 cm

Price: Temporarily out of stock

I can usually source this poster. If you are interested please contact me. Greg

 

Coquelin Aîné (1841-1909) French actor of unusual range and versatility. Coquelin studied acting at the Conservatoire in 1859 and in 1860 made his debut at the Comédie-Française. At the age of 23 he was a full member of the company. Mascarille in Molière's Étourdi and Figaro, comic valets of brilliant exuberancy, were his greatest parts in the classical repertory. (www.britannica.com)

 

"I would like . . . to group in a series of albums all the celebrities of the day, only the most illustrious and famous names. But to bring together so many important people, so occupied and not easily mobilized, I feared that my modest talent was not a sufficient enough attraction . . . So, to convince them, I had the idea to offer to them a glass of famous Benedictine . . . And, indeed, all answered my invitation with a unified eagerness as if I was flattering them." Sem

 

"So begins the introduction to Sem's eight-lithograph collection of celebrities praising the virtues of the liqueur, including famed aviator, Santos-Dumont, composer Massenet and actor Albert Brasseur. The career of caricaturist Sem started modestly enough in his home town of Perigueux where he published his first collection of local celebrities' portraits in 1895. Only after doing the same for Bordeaux in 1897 and Marseilles in 1898 did he venture to Paris where he charmed the city folk with his talent. Hardly anyone of note escaped being captured for posterity." (Rennert, PAI-XXVI, 557)

 

 

Benedictine

"In 1863, Alexandre Le Grand, a distant relation of the Fécamp notable, came across the book of spells by chance and discovered the secret recipe. Straight away, he decided to decipher it in order to re-create this mysterious liqueur. His tenacity enabled him eventually to do so. He modernised the recipe and called it "Benedictine". The liqueur soon became extremely popular: by 1873, production had reached almost 150,000 bottles a year. In light of this success, Alexandre Le Grand decided to set up the Benedictine SA company in June 1876, with capital of 2,200,000 francs. In 1882, Alexandre Le Grand decided to have a unique building built in Fécamp to house the distillery: a Palace-Museum. It is here, in this extraordinary place, that the famous liqueur is still made today." (Benedictine.fr)

 

Pochoir, French for stencil, defines a technique of print making popular in France in the early 1900s. It is a labor intensive process of applying brilliant color by hand using a series of cutout stencils. Each plate is an original print using up to thirty stencils in one image. All are hand colored and most are signed in the plate by the illustrator.