Pillard-verneuil, Peacocks, Fish And Seaweed, The Animal In Decoration

Plate 21 from L'Animal dans la Décoration, 1897, Zincography Signed MP Verneuil, Titled PEACOCKS IN SORBIERS, STENCIL // FISH AND SEAWEED, BORDER, and Imprimerie Lemercier, Paris in the lower margin in the plate. 20th century carved and gilded wooden frame with ivy motifs, yellow aurora conservation mount Slight trace in the upper left margin

Today largely forgotten, Maurice Pillard Verneuil was nevertheless far from being an unknown at the beginning of the last century. First a pupil at the Guérin school, then a collaborator of Eugène Grasset, he followed the example of this master of Art Nouveau by doubling his artistic talent with sustained educational activity. He published numerous works, often illustrated with his own drawings – the most notorious remain L'Animal dans la Décoration in 1897, from which our plate is taken, and L'Étude de la Plante, its application to the art industries in 1904, both published by Éditions de la Librairie centrale des beaux-arts. At the same time, he illustrated and wrote numerous articles for the famous French magazine Art et Décoration. Verneuil is marked in L'Animal et la Décoration by various aspects of Grasset's teaching, in particular by the concern for a varied chromatic range playing with monochromes, as well as by the naturalistic observation preceding the artistic interpretation, resulting from a geometric simplification. In his collection, the artist does not hesitate to mix the animal world with plant or abstract forms. For Grasset as for Verneuil, plants make it possible to create the ornaments that the artist needs, alongside a repertoire of animal shapes integrated into the previous motifs. From the feather to its shimmering ramage, the peacock constitutes an iconic theme for artists of the Belle Époque. The cover of Verneuil's work bears witness to this, echoing the monumental fresco frieze for the dome of La Samaritaine dating from the same period, created by the son of the architect, Francis Jourdain. Also appear in The Animal and the decoration some inhabitants of the marine world, in particular a whole series of fish, jellyfish and shrimps attesting to the interest of its author for the sea. This passion will be amplified over articles and of research, culminating in a collaboration with his Breton alter ego Mathurin Méheut, settled in Roscoff in 1910. Their four-handed work entitled Study of the sea, fauna and flora of the Channel and the ocean published in 1913 is exceptional, in insofar as it is at the origin of the rediscovery of a world often overshadowed by the artists, scientists and decorators of that time.

Ill. 1. Eugène Grasset, Peacock and peacock feathers, between 1890 and 1903, pencil, H. 20.3; L. 15.5 cm. Purchase with the help of the Friends of the Musée d'Orsay, 1993, © Musée d'Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/ Sophie Crépy Ill 2. Attributed to Francis Jourdain, Peacock Frieze, frescoes, zenithal cupola, La Samaritaine, Paris, around 1909. Restored by the Atelier Jean-Loup Bouvier in 2020. Ill.3. Cover, The Animal in the Decoration, 1897, zincography, 48.6 x 34.6 cm, Collection de Marval, Switzerland.

Bibliography: Maurice Pillard-Verneuil, Animals in Decoration, Paris, Librairie centrale des beaux-arts, 1897, introduction by Eugène Grasset. Helen Bieri Thomson, Maurice Pillard-Verneuil, Decorative Artist of Art Nouveau 1869-1942, Neumann Foundation and Somogy Éditions d'Art, exhibition catalogue, 2000, 119 p.