Couverture de L'Estampe Moderne n°11 mars 1898

Original black and white print with full margins serving as cover for the famous monthly publication L'Estampe Moderne. Entirely printed in black, our print is the cover of the rare deluxe volume compilation with full margins of the first year of publication. Artist's signature in the plate and luxury edition number added in pencil.
Magnificent French monthly publication issued between May 1897 and April 1899, L'Estampe moderne consists of unpublished chromolithographs which, unlike other journals such as Les Maîtres de l'Affiche and as stipulated on the tissue guards, were created specifically by each artist for the journal. Thus 100 prints appeared 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 was printed in 2000 copies sold for 3.50F and 100 on Japan paper offered at 10F. Henri Piazza also planned a confidential deluxe printing: 50 copies on Japan paper with full margins and 50 in black on China paper at the considerable price of 30F.
French collectors' interest in artistic posters intensified in the early 1890s. Octave Uzanne, to describe this fever, invented the term "affichomanie." The poster, originally popular and pasted in the streets of the capital, then became an art object and its ephemeral medium became precious and destined for preservation.
Piazza decided to remove the poster from its advertising purpose and elevate it to the rank of a complete work of art on the same level as the deluxe illustrated book. He thus composed 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.
The publisher also integrated into his project a Czech artist freshly arrived in Paris, Alfons Mucha "qui s'est révélé depuis peu en France et qui a conquis d'emblée une si grande place dans la faveur du public. Comme dans ses affiches, que tout le monde connaît et recherche, il nous montre ici les ressources variées de son talent multiple et sûr de dessinateur, de décorateur et de coloriste." ["who has recently emerged in France and who has immediately conquered such a great place in public favor. As in his posters, which everyone knows and seeks, he shows us here the varied resources of his multiple and sure talent as draftsman, decorator and colorist."] (caption printed on the tissue guard of Salomé). It was moreover to him that the first premium of the journal was entrusted, offered "à tous les souscripteurs des douze livraisons annuelles de L'Estampe moderne" ["to all subscribers of the twelve annual issues of L'Estampe moderne"] as well as the famous illustration of the covers.
Very handsome copy.