The criteria of the original print
Roger Marx explained the basic idea behind the selection in the foreword to the first album. Marty, he wrote, was more interested in the individual qualities and expression of the artist than in particular schools, styles or techniques. The artist’s original intentions would remain clear provided he worked according to the criteria of the original print. This meant that the artist had to be involved throughout the creative process, from the initial design, through the selection of the paper to the printing of the final etching, lithograph or woodcut.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Lithography, Cover for the album L'Estampe originale (album I) (La lithographie, couverture pour la première année de L'Estampe originale), 1893
Complete overview of fin-de-siècle printmaking
Because the individual qualities of the artist were Marty’s only criterion, all modern styles and movements from the fin-de-siècle were represented in the album. Prints by the latest artists’ groups, such as the Pont-Aven School, appeared in the same portfolio as work by more established names like Auguste Renoir and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. The first album was nonetheless firmly devoted to the avant-garde, with colour lithographs by the Nabis and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Paul Elie Ranson, Tiger in the Jungle (Tigre dans les jungles), 1893
Henri Gabriel Ibels, At the Circus (Au cirque), 1893
Further reading
- Roger Marx, ‘Préface’, L’Estampe originale. Première année, Paris 1893
- Donna M. Stein, Donald H. Karshan, L’Estampe originale. A catalogue raisonné, New York 1970
- Phillip Dennis Cate, Patricia Eckert Boyer, L’Estampe originale. Artistic Printmaking in France 1893–1895, Zwolle 1991