ARMAND RASSENFOSSE (1862-1934) AFFICHES ETRANGERE. 1897.

17 1/4x23 1/4 inches.
Condition A-: restoration in margins.
In the 1890s the artistic ties between Paris and Brussels were very strong., with many Belgian artists both living and working in France's capital city. In 1896 Rassenfosse designed two posters (more than anyone else) for the Salon des Cent. It was likely on the basis of those designs that he was commissioned to design the cover for Les Affiches Etrangeres as he was the most visible and accessible of the "foreign" artists working in Paris. His image, laden with recognizable favorites from the poster world, shows a young woman leafing through a portfolio of posters. The walls behind her are decorated with images from the book and posters that likely would have been part of the visually vocabulary of the day. Some copies of the cover, an original nine color lithograph, were kept separately and sold as posters themselves. L'Affiche Belge p. 88-90.