Artist: Lucien Levy-Dhurmer French (1865-1953)
Title: Belle d'Antan (Yesteryear beauty)
Plate: em30
Original Lithograph,
issued by L'Estampe Moderne
Issue Number 8, Dec. 1897.
Printed by F. Champenois, Paris.
Blindstamp lower right in margin.
Signed in the stone lower right.
Presented in 16 x 20 in. acid free, archival museum mat, with framing labels. Ready to frame. Shipped boxed flat.
Certificate of Authenticity.
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Sheet Size: 12 in x 16 in 30.5 cm x 40.5 cm
Price: $225.00
Lucien Levy-Dhurmer One of the best and strangest French Symbolists. Master of pastels, painter of fantastical scenes, portraits and beautiful Mediterranean landscapes.
Lucien Levy-Dhurmer French painter and potter. From 1879 he studied at the Ecole Supérieure de Dessin et de Sculpture in Paris. In his first exhibition at the Salon in 1882 he showed a small porcelain plaque depicting the Birth of Venus in the style of Alexandre Cabanel and he continued to exhibit there regularly. From 1886 to 1895 he worked as a decorator of earthenware and then as artistic director of the studio of Clément Massier (c. 1845–1917) at Golfe Juan, near Cannes.
Around 1892 he signed his first pieces of earthenware inspired by Islamic ceramics and made a name for himself primarily as a potter at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1895. An innovator in ceramic shapes, techniques and glazes, he participated in the revival of the decorative arts at the end of the 19th century. During this period he spent some time in Italy, notably in Venice where he familiarized himself with 15th century Italian art.
In 1896 he exhibited for the first time at the Galerie Georges Petit (see poster below): about twenty pastels and paintings were displayed, revealing his individual style and gifts as a portrait painter.
The female form, influenced by the art of Leonardo and the Pre-Raphaelites became, with landscape, one of his favoured themes and was invested with mystery, using a technique at once full-bodied and refined (e.g. Eve, 1896; Paris, Mus. d’Orsay). In the 20th century he gradually departed from Symbolism except in some representations of women illustrating the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy and in some landscapes. (all-art.org)
Not unlike the Maitres de L'Affiche series, L'Estampe Moderne was a portfolio printed between 1897-98, published by Imprimerie Champenois, Paris, contained 24 monthly portfolios, with four original lithographs in each. Each commissioned only for this series. Some of the contributing artists included Mucha, Rhead, Meunier, Ibels, Steinlen, Willette and Grasset.