Zodiac 1897 Calendar
Zodiac 1897 Calendar by Czech Painter Alphonse Mucha (Alfons Maria Mucha: 1860 – 1939) one of the most popular and well known artist of the Art Nouveau Period.
Zodiac c1896 is an outstanding example of Mucha’s Art Nouveau Mastery. It was the first piece of artwork he created for the print company Champenois, and it incorporates twelve zodiac symbols situated as a halo disk behind a side profile of a young lady’s head.
It is beautifully adorned with various patterns and a complex floral arrangement made up of plants, flowers and vines, which are placed along the perimeter of the image; while the young lady with her flowing orange hair has her head adorned with a jeweled headdress of gold and ivory pieces; with a globe above her forehead and pendants hang on the side of her face; accented with a large jeweled and ivory necklace.
This piece gained the notice of Léon Deschamps, who at the time was the chief editor of La Plume Magazine and he purchased the rights to distribute the artwork as the magazine’s calendar of 1897. This was one of Mucha’s most popular designs, with at least 9 variants being made including the base image that contains no text which was created in 1896.
At the top is the inscription LA PLUME – Revue Bi-Medsuell Illustree Ab 12:00 15 par An Le 60 ccop – 31, Rue Bonaparte, Paris – Salon des Cent_Bibliotheque Artistiqu et Litteraire
This is a retouched digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image.
Info Below Derived From Wikipedia.org – Some Info Above Derived From Wikiart.org
Alfons Maria Mucha July 24, 1860 – July 14, 1939), was known internationally as Alphonse Mucha. He was a prominent Czech painter, illustrator and graphic artist, living in Paris during the Art Nouveau period, and is best known for his distinctly stylized and decorative theatrical posters, particularly those of Sarah Bernhardt.
He produced illustrations, advertisements, decorative panels, and designs, which became among the best-known images of the period.
In the second part of his career, at the age of 43, he returned to his homeland of Bohemia-Moravia region in Austria and devoted himself to painting a series of twenty monumental canvases known as The Slav Epic, depicting the history of all the Slavic peoples of the world, which he painted between 1912 and 1926.
In 1928, on the 10th anniversary of the independence of Czechoslovakia, he presented the series to the Czech nation. He considered it his most important work. It is now on display in Prague.
