Maurice Leloir (1851-1940)
Maurice Leloir, Illustrator
Cahu, Theodore
Richelieu
Paris Ancienne Librairie Furne; Combet & Cie. Editeurs 1901. Folio [12.5 X 14.5 inches] cloth bound hardback. 2 leaves + IV + 84 pages. Green with stamped colored polychrome illustration on cover: RICHELIEU in red, his coat of arms, his portrait by a map, the crown on a table by his side. 40 chromotypogravure watercolours by Maurice LELOIR, including 34 full page and 2 double page plates. Pages are held by stubs to allow full spread of illustrations some of which stand alone and some of which are merged with the text. An exceptionally original and elegant book. Bottom spine worn. A very fine copy of this book. Bookseller Inventory #437
¬ Price: US$ 600.00
Cahu, Theodore
Richelieu
Paris Ancienne Librairie Furne; Combet & Cie. Editeurs 1901. Folio [12.5 X 14.5 inches] cloth bound hardback. 2 leaves + IV + 84 pages. Green with stamped colored polychrome illustration on cover: RICHELIEU in red, his coat of arms, his portrait by a map, the crown on a table by his side. 40 chromotypogravure watercolours by Maurice LELOIR, including 34 full page and 2 double page plates. Pages are held by stubs to allow full spread of illustrations some of which stand alone and some of which are merged with the text. An exceptionally original and elegant book. Bottom spine worn. A very fine copy of this book. Bookseller Inventory #437
¬ Price: US$ 600.00
Maurice Leloir is considered a historical painter, watercolorist, engraver, illustrator, playwright and film producer. He was born in Paris on the 1st of November 1851 and died on the 7th of October 1940. Leloir was born into a family of successful artists.
He received his formal training with his father historical painter Jean-Baptiste Auguste Leloir (1809-1992), his mother watercolorist H"?©lo"?Øse Colin (1820-1874), daughter of Alexander-Marie Colin (1798-1873) and with his older brother Alexander-Louis Leloir (1843-1884).
Maurice Leloir was elected President of the French Watercolor Society. He was an incredibly successful illustrator. Illustrating works by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), playwright Jean-Baptiste Molier"?© (1622-1673), and novelists Honor"?© de Balzac (1799-1859). He was also talented playwright. Leloir was the founder and president the Costume Society in 1906 and wrote the Dictionary of Costume, which he also illustrated.
The career of Maurice Leloir illustrates the fin de si"?®cle confluence of literature, theater, and cinema. Leloir's "Manon Lescaut, 1892" (Dahesh Museum of Art, NY) is based on the penultimate scene from the Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, the 1731 novel by Abb"?© Pr"?©vost.
In 1884, Jules Massenet's opera "Manon" premiered in Paris. The success of this lyric drama probably led Leloir, who designed theater posters for Massenet's operas, to illustrate a new edition of the novel published the following year. "Manon Lescaut" by Leloir, after its premiere at the 1892 Paris Salon, was exhibited in 1893 at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the same year in which Giacomo Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" premiered in Turin. The scene, found in the Puccini opera, but not Massenet's, depicts the Chevalier des Grieux with his dead lover Manon in the then wilderness of Louisiana.
Leloir, himself, only crossed the Atlantic in 1928 at the invitation of the silent screen star Douglas Fairbanks to serve as an artistic advisor on the film The Man in the Iron Mask, staring Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford and based on the final novel in Alexandre Dumas' Les mousquetaires trilogy (1844-1850). Leloir's much re-published 1894 illustrations for Les trois mousquetaires, the first novel in the trilogy, had long been accepted, in Hollywood and elsewhere, as the novel's authentic illustrations and Fairbanks conceived his screenplay for The Man in the Iron Mask, as a sequel to his own hugely successful 1921 film The Three Musketeers. Leloir was also commissioned to design theatre scenes for Sarah Bernhardt, Andr"?© Antoine, Albert Carr"?© and Firmin G"?©mier.
Leloir was not only a recognized expert on the history of costume, but also one of the field's most important collectors. His 1920 gift to the Mus"?©e Carnavalet in Paris of 2000 costumes and accessories forms the core of the present-day Mus"?©e Galliera - Mus"?©e de la mode de la Ville de Paris.
Books Illustrated
Brillat-Savarin, Physiologie du go"?ªt, Carteret, 1923, en collaboration avec Henri Pille.
Alexandre Dumas, Les Trois mousquetaires, L"?©vy, 1894.
Diderot, Jacques le fataliste et son ma"?Ætre, 1884.
Lesage, Gil Blas, Charavay, 1899.
Cahu, Theodore, Richelieu Paris Ancienne Librairie Furne; Combet & Cie. Editeurs 1901.
Maurice Leloir was elected President of the French Watercolor Society. He was an incredibly successful illustrator. Illustrating works by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), playwright Jean-Baptiste Molier"?© (1622-1673), and novelists Honor"?© de Balzac (1799-1859). He was also talented playwright. Leloir was the founder and president the Costume Society in 1906 and wrote the Dictionary of Costume, which he also illustrated.
The career of Maurice Leloir illustrates the fin de si"?®cle confluence of literature, theater, and cinema. Leloir's "Manon Lescaut, 1892" (Dahesh Museum of Art, NY) is based on the penultimate scene from the Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, the 1731 novel by Abb"?© Pr"?©vost.
In 1884, Jules Massenet's opera "Manon" premiered in Paris. The success of this lyric drama probably led Leloir, who designed theater posters for Massenet's operas, to illustrate a new edition of the novel published the following year. "Manon Lescaut" by Leloir, after its premiere at the 1892 Paris Salon, was exhibited in 1893 at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the same year in which Giacomo Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" premiered in Turin. The scene, found in the Puccini opera, but not Massenet's, depicts the Chevalier des Grieux with his dead lover Manon in the then wilderness of Louisiana.
Leloir, himself, only crossed the Atlantic in 1928 at the invitation of the silent screen star Douglas Fairbanks to serve as an artistic advisor on the film The Man in the Iron Mask, staring Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford and based on the final novel in Alexandre Dumas' Les mousquetaires trilogy (1844-1850). Leloir's much re-published 1894 illustrations for Les trois mousquetaires, the first novel in the trilogy, had long been accepted, in Hollywood and elsewhere, as the novel's authentic illustrations and Fairbanks conceived his screenplay for The Man in the Iron Mask, as a sequel to his own hugely successful 1921 film The Three Musketeers. Leloir was also commissioned to design theatre scenes for Sarah Bernhardt, Andr"?© Antoine, Albert Carr"?© and Firmin G"?©mier.
Leloir was not only a recognized expert on the history of costume, but also one of the field's most important collectors. His 1920 gift to the Mus"?©e Carnavalet in Paris of 2000 costumes and accessories forms the core of the present-day Mus"?©e Galliera - Mus"?©e de la mode de la Ville de Paris.
Books Illustrated
Brillat-Savarin, Physiologie du go"?ªt, Carteret, 1923, en collaboration avec Henri Pille.
Alexandre Dumas, Les Trois mousquetaires, L"?©vy, 1894.
Diderot, Jacques le fataliste et son ma"?Ætre, 1884.
Lesage, Gil Blas, Charavay, 1899.
Cahu, Theodore, Richelieu Paris Ancienne Librairie Furne; Combet & Cie. Editeurs 1901.
Guy de Maupassant, Une vie, Carteret, 1920.
Abb"?© Pr"?©vost, Manon Lescaut, Launette, 1885, 225 ill.
Sterne, Voyage sentimental, 1884. Illustrated by Maurice Leloir
J.J. Rousseau, Les Confessions, new edition, H. Launette & Cie, Paris, 1889, illustrated by Maurice Leloir
Voltaire's Last Visit to Paris, engraving by Maurice Leloir
Dictionnaire du Costume: et de ses accessoires des Armes et des "?âtoffes des origines "? nos jours [dir.] Maurice Leloir; pref. Georges G. Toudouze. - Paris: Librairie Grund, cop. 1992. - 390 p.: il. 29 cm.- ISBN 2-7000-2009-X
Text courtesy Roughton Galleries, Houston