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Description

Esquisses Décoratives
de René Binet, Architecte.
Préface de Gustave Geffroy.


Paris, Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts
(no date but ~1905)

35 (of 60) loose plates and 14 pages of text in a marbled cardboard folio with ribbon ties. A few color plates, the majority monochrome offering a vast panorama of decorative architectural elements in the Art Nouveau style. The color plates notably illustrate ceramics, a rural decor, a wall hanging, shop fronts, etc. Joseph René Binet (1861 - 1911) was a French architect, decorator, painter, and art theorist. He created the Monumental Gate, Place de la Concorde, for the Universal Exhibition of 1900 in Paris, and the reconstruction of the Printemps department stores. In this work he explains his approach inspired by Goethe's "Theory of Colors" and the work of the German biologist Ernst Haeckel. 
 
18" x 13.5".

Very rare exemplar of Art Nouveau architecture detail!