Fauness with Grapes — Fontan

An autumnal allegory in which a young fauness, caught mid-mischief, plunders a heavy vine of ripe grapes.

Original French title: Bucolique d'Automne — Une Petite Faunesse en Maraude. Drawn by Léo Fontan. Published in La Vie Parisienne, Paris, 1920.

Léo Fontan's pastoral allegories were a defining feature of La Vie Parisienne's 1920s output, blending Art Deco contour with the long French tradition of mythological pretext for the nude. The fauness was a recurring conceit in the magazine, the bucolic subject licensing a frankly decorative eroticism.

Chromolithograph. Sheet size approximately 38.0 × 28.9 cm. Very Good.