"Fleur de mai" - Lithographie originale sur Chine - L'Estampe Moderne

Rare original lithograph executed by Paul Herrmann, also known as Henri Héran for L'Estampe Moderne, series number 4 published in August 1897.
One of 50 deluxe proofs printed on China paper with wide margins, artist's signature and date in the plate, publisher's dry stamp representing a child's profile in the lower margin, mounted on a sheet of laid paper with the numbered stamp of the deluxe edition on the reverse, occasional marginal foxing.
Magnificent French monthly publication edited between May 1897 and April 1899, L'Estampe moderne consists of original chromolithographs which, unlike other reviews such as Les Maîtres de l'Affiche and as stipulated on the tissue guards, were created specially by each artist for the review. Thus 100 prints appear in total, covering the major artistic movements of the end of the 19th century: Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Pre-Raphaelites, Orientalists and Belle Époque. Each delivery of four prints is issued in 2000 copies sold for 3.50F and 100 on Japan paper offered at 10F. Henri Piazza also provides for a confidential deluxe printing: 50 copies on Japan paper with wide margins and 50 in black on China paper at the considerable price of 30F.
This print of handsome format is superbly printed on one of the most prestigious papers: China. "Despite all its qualities, China paper, too inconsistent, owes its reputation, not to its own beauty, but rather to its particular affinities with printing ink. Its texture, smooth and soft together, is more apt than any other to receive a beautiful printing. This property makes China paper sought after for printing engravings..." (Anatole France).
The interest of French collectors in artistic posters intensifies at the beginning of the 1890s. Octave Uzanne, to qualify this fever, invents the term "affichomanie". The poster, originally popular and plastered in the streets of the capital, then becomes an art object and its ephemeral support becomes precious and destined for preservation.
Piazza decides to remove the poster from its advertising vocation and elevate it to the rank of a work of art in its own right on the same level as the luxury illustrated book. He thus composes a prestigious collection of entirely original works, by the most prominent European artists of the moment: Georges de Feure, Eugène Grasset, Henri Detouche, Emile Berchmans, Louis Rhead, Gaston de Latenay, Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, Gustave-Max Stevens, Charles Doudelet, Hans Christiansen, Henri Fantin-Latour, Steinlen, Ibels, Engels, Willette, Henri Meunier, Evenepoël, Bellery-Desfontaines, Charles Léandre, etc.
Handsome copy in the Belle Époque style.