L'été. (Summer). Charles Martin, Gazette du Bon Ton c1922

by Martin, Charles

Summer haze. Pensive lady in pretty summer dress, standing by the water, looking at a row boat.

Pierre Mourgue and Charles Martin (1884-1934) excelled in the subtle scenes. Charles Martin used two distinctive styles in his pochoir fashion plates for the influential fashion periodical Gazette du Bon Ton. With clarity and imagination he portrayed fanciful vehicles (as in his Carriage Automobile for the Grand Gala), but this wistful scene for a fashion plate in Gazette du Bon Ton, is more akin to the style of his risque pochoir illustrations to the Fables of Jean de la Fontaine.

Eminent Parisian designers introduced their latest fashion designs in the pochoirs of Gazette du Bon Ton (Journal of Good Style), published in Paris by Lucien Vogel, between 1912 and 1925 (with a break during World War I). The latest elegant clothing shown in an appropriate setting provides a charming fashion narrative of the lifestyle of the wealthy at that time.

Pochoir was a labour-intensive method of printing, with up to 20 stencils cut for separate applications of watercolour by hand with a variety of brushes and tools to show the fabric details and the nuance of colour tone. French for stencil, 'pochoir' has always been used worldwide in recognition of French artists/ mastery of the process.

Currently in a conservation mount, the window size of this plate is approximately 23 x 18 cm (9 x 7 inches), and external measurement 37 x 32 cm (14.5 x 12.5 inches).