Book Jacket Design for Life on the Boulevards (La Vie des Boulevards)

Artist Pierre Vidal (French, 1849–1929)

Date1895

Mediumcolor lithograph on cream wove paper

Dimensions28.9 x 50.4 cm (11 3/8 x 19 13/16 in.)

ClassificationsPrints

Credit LineSarah C. Garver Fund

Terms

Object number1981.291

Label TextPart of Vidal’s historical importance is linked to his faithful visual chronicle of La Belle Époque or “The Beautiful Era”—a period of French peace and prosperity from approximately 1871 until 1914. A draughtsman and bibliophile, Vidal illustrated manuscripts for a variety of significant French writers like Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert. This color lithograph is the jacket design for a book Vidal co-authored with Georges Montorgueil. In an otherwise achromatic image, the brightly colored women wear large hats and tightly corseted dresses with puffed mutton sleeves—au courant in the 1890s.ProvenancePurchased from Jean Louis Barbery, Paris, France

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