EUGENE GRASSET

(1841-1917)

In 1893 L'Estampe Originale was launched by André Marty, the director of the weekly magazine Journal des Artistes. The intention was for subscribers to receive a series of nine albums which were to be published quarterly. The first eight albums contained ten original prints, the last  fourteen.

The Vitriol Thrower was published in the sixth album. It was hand-coloured using the 'pochoir' or stencil process in five colours. There is also a comparable lithograph of a similar nature, La Morphinomane (The Morphine Addict) showing a young girl injecting morphine into her upper left thigh.

Born in Lausanne, Grasset moved to Paris in 1871, working as a designer at a firm making furnishing fabrics. In 1878 he began designing ornamental initial letters (the first published  being Les Fêtes Chrétiennes by the Abbé Drioux, 1880) and, during his career he also designed jewelry, stained glass, and ceramics, and supplied illustrations to several magazines.

In 1894 Grasset held his first and only one-man exhibition at the Salon des Cent.

Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Extract taken from Prints, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery .