"Loups de mer" - Lithographie originale sur Japon - L'Estampe Moderne

Rare original lithograph printed in colors, executed by Auguste Lepère for L'Estampe Moderne, series number 10 published in February 1898.
One of 50 deluxe copies printed on Japan paper with wide margins, publisher's dry stamp depicting a child's profile in lower margin, numbered stamp of the deluxe edition on verso; engraving preceded by a tissue guard captioned with the artist's name, title and a poem.
Lithograph inspired by a poem by Jean Richepin, En ramant, reproduced on the print's tissue guard.
Magnificent French monthly publication edited between May 1897 and April 1899, L'Estampe moderne consists of unpublished chromolithographs which, unlike other magazines such as Les Maîtres de l'Affiche and as stipulated on the tissue guards, were created specially by each artist for the magazine. Thus 100 prints appear in total, covering the major artistic movements of the late 19th century: Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Pre-Raphaelites, Orientalists and Belle Epoque. Each issue of four prints is printed in 2000 copies sold at 3.50F and 100 on Japan paper offered at 10F. Henri Piazza also provides 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 the most prestigious of papers: Japan. Thick, silky, satiny and pearlescent, it contributes to making each page a work in its own right. Its quality of ink absorption and its affinity with colors also make it the ideal support for these very beautiful lithographs.
The interest of French collectors for artistic posters intensifies at the beginning of the 1890s. Octave Uzanne, to qualify this fever invents the term "affichomanie". The poster, originally popular and posted in the streets of the capital, then becomes an art object and its ephemeral support becomes precious and devoted to conservation.
Piazza decides to remove the poster from its advertising vocation and elevate it to the rank of a complete work of art on the same level as the illustrated deluxe 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.