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Collaboration in color: master printers, dealer-publishers, and avant-garde lithography in late nineteenth-century France

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Collaboration in color: master printers, dealer-publishers, and avant-garde lithography in late nineteenth-century France

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COLLABORATION IN COLOR:
MASTER PRINTERS, DEALER-PUBLISHERS, AND AVANT-GARDE LITHOGRAPHY
IN LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

by

Natalia P. Lauricella

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirement for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ART HISTORY)

August 2021

Copyright 2021 Natalia P. Lauricella
ii
Acknowledgements

The network behind this dissertation is as important as the one it studies. I am especially
grateful to Vanessa Schwartz, whose keen analysis and insightful feedback have guided and
nurtured this project from the moment I entered the doctoral program at USC. Her mentorship,
friendship, and sense of humor have buoyed me and enriched my graduate training
immeasurably. Amy Ogata was a crucial interlocutor, sharing sources, posing astute questions,
and strengthening the project with her vast knowledge of its historical period. Elinor Accampo
provided support and perspective over many years; her close reading and thoughtful feedback of
early drafts made my writing and analysis stronger. Conversations with Lisa Pon were
energizing, and my dissertation has benefited from my engagement with her ideas about the long
history of print and its scholarship. My extensive work with Daniela Bleichmar and Megan Luke
during coursework and in preparation for qualifying exams helped direct and shape this project.
Finally, I am grateful to Deb Harkness for her enthusiasm and encouragement in a graduate
course on book history that modeled and helped form my approach to material in this project.
Initial research trips to France were generously supported by the Department of Art
History and the Visual Studies Research Institute at USC. A Fulbright grant and a fellowship
from the Borchard Foundation allowed me to spend the 2018-2019 academic year in Paris where
I conducted the bulk of my research. I am grateful to Professor Ségolène Le Men at the
Université Paris Nanterre for hosting me. My thanks to Céline Chicha-Castex and her colleagues
in the Département des estampes et de la photographie at the Bibliothèque nationale de France
for assisting me in my research. Isabelle Servajean and her colleagues at the Bibliothèque Forney
and Solveig Buch at the Bibliothèque de l'Ecole Estienne provided guidance and expertise. I
iii
thank Isabelle Gaëtan, Jérôme Legrand, Estelle Bégué, and Anne-Charlotte Menoret at the
Documentation of the Musée d’Orsay for facilitating my research there. Sonia Christon and
Sophie Biass-Fabiani at the Musée Rodin offered assistance at numerous stages of the research
process. My sincere thanks to Claire Denis and Fabienne Stahl for welcoming me to the Maurice
Denis archives and to Clémence Gaboriau for both her help in the archives and her friendship. I
thank Marina Ferretti for facilitating my visit to the Archives Signac and Charlotte Hellman for
graciously receiving me there and assisting in my research. Véronique Serrano at the Musée
Bonnard provided helpful guidance, and Lucia Piccioni aided me in locating and accessing
archival material related to Édouard Vuillard.
I extend my thanks to Christian Bramsen for generously welcoming me into the Atelier
Clot, Bramsen & Georges. I spent many afternoons visiting the atelier on the Rue Vieille du
Temple, where I happily engaged in lively and informative conversations, demos, tours, and
lunches with Christian and his colleagues Thomas, Ariel, Priscille, and Victor. It has been an
honor and a joy to spend time with practitioners carrying on the rich tradition of collaborative
printmaking at the heart of this study. My deepest thanks to Docteur Guy Georges and Agnès
Tapié de Céleyran for so warmly welcoming me and my mother into their home where we spent
a festive afternoon discussing Auguste and André Clot and the important history and legacy of
the Atelier Clot. I am grateful for their interest in my research and support of this project.
Beyond the walls of Parisian libraries and archives, many colleagues offered support. I
am grateful for the collaboration of Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho at the Van Gogh Museum; I
thank her and her colleagues for facilitating my visits to the museum. My thanks to Willem
Russell for speaking with me at length in Amsterdam about his collection and our shared passion
for French prints. At the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of
iv
San Francisco, I thank Karin Breuer and Natalie Pellolio for facilitating my visits to the print
room. For their assistance in my study of technical and material histories, I am grateful to M.
Sennelier at Sennelier, Nicholas Walt at L. Cornelissen & Son, Marie-Claire Michel at Arches,
Véronique Gouader at Antalis, and Caitlin Elizabeth Boucher at Colart and her colleagues at
Charbonnel for sharing their expertise and institutional knowledge.
Over the years that I worked on this project, conversations with other scholars and
colleagues guided, assisted, and encouraged me as I developed this dissertation and conducted
my research. I thank Emily Beeny, Phillip Dennis Cate, Mary Weaver Chapin, Catherine Clark,
Ann Dumas, Julia Frey, Vivien Greene, Ruth Iskin, Brian Jacobson, Laura Anne Kalba, Jonathan
Pascoe Pratt, Rebecca Rabinow, Clara Roca, Debora Silverman, Naoko Takahatake, and Emily
Talbot.
My thanks to the various printmakers whose practice and teaching enriched my
understanding of the important role printers have played in the history of art. I thank Jules
Maeght and the printers at the Imprimerie ARTE, where I spent an informative afternoon that
proved pivotal for how I understand the printer’s essential work with color. Thank you also to
Patrice Forest for receiving me at Idem Paris. An intensive lithography course at the Kala Art
Institute in Berkeley, CA with Leyla Rzayeva helped me more fully understand the manual labor,
skill, and expertise lithographic printing require. Thank you to Amy Díaz-Infante for the
printmaking course at City College San Francisco where I learned firsthand about the importance
of making in art historical study and the communal nature of the print shop. A summer course at
the California Rare Book School on Artists' Books taught by Johanna Drucker was helpful in my
thinking about questions of material, production, and conceptual value in print culture.
v
At USC, I am grateful for the support and camaraderie of my graduate cohort: Emily
Anderson, Jess Brier, Danielle Charlap, Grace Converse, Frances Lazare, and Isabel Frampton
Wade. In particular, the friendship of Robert Gordon-Fogelson and Dina Murokh has sustained
me and made this experience one that I will always cherish. Rob was a constant presence at
every stage of the project, and I thank him for his astute feedback and insight at key moments as
well as for his companionship, especially during countless hours co-working on Zoom. This
dissertation would not exist if not for Dina; words cannot begin to express my gratitude for all of
her guidance, wisdom, and dear friendship. Her brilliant feedback on every single piece of
writing related to this project, as well as her thoughtful and close reading of an entire draft, made
it infinitely stronger.
Friends outside of USC have supported this project through long walks, dinners, calls,
messages, and so much more. In particular, I am grateful to Laurel Garber for our shared love of
prints, many hours spent side by side in the Salle Labrouste, and lunch breaks in the Palais
Royal. To Emma Quaytman, thank you for answering my many questions about print techniques
and art making, for inspiring me to think more abstractly and creatively, and for our nearly three
decades of friendship. Thank you to Gracie Linden for so carefully reading the full dissertation,
for providing endless moral support, and for always saying the right thing and making me feel
like I could actually do this.
My family has provided love and support these past six years. Thank you to the Roses,
Charles, Zander, Henry, and Becca, and especially to Erika, for her support and company in Paris
and during countless museum visits, and to Amelia, for understanding this process and always
checking in precisely when I needed encouragement most. To my grandmother Betty Lauricella,
thank you for the invaluable perspective, wise words, and the reminder that there’s “nothing to
vi
it.” Thank you to Nico Lauricella, Freyan Billimoria, and Luca Lauricella, whose Facetime calls
cheered me up during shelter-at-home and later during weekends writing at my desk. For always
making me laugh, cooking me dinner, keeping me sane during this process and quarantine, I
thank Michael Lauricella. To my father Hank Lauricella, my deepest thanks for sharing his
enthusiasm for prints, for providing insightful comments on my dissertation draft, and for
encouraging this project and my career path. My mother Mary Pickering has been my role model
my entire life. My thanks to her for thoughtfully engaging with a draft of the dissertation, sharing
her books and ideas, showing me where to find the entrance to the BNF Mitterrand, and traveling
with me on research excursions, even driving the rental car (it was manual) to an important
archive. Her love and support mean the world to me.
And finally, my endless love and thanks to Christian Rose, who graciously and
enthusiastically lived with this project for years. I am grateful for his brilliant mind, our
conversations about this material on long walks, his help brainstorming and mapping out each
chapter with pen and paper, his companionship on visits to print shops around the world, and his
love for the prints that I made. I dedicate this to him.

vii
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ii

List of Figures viii

Abstract xii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 31
The Printer’s Labor: From Commercial Firm to the Atelier

Chapter 2 72
The Printer’s Collaboration: The Craft of Color

Chapter 3 120
The Printer’s Translation: Reproduction in Print

Chapter 4 163
The Printer’s Erasure: The Limited Edition

Epilogue 214

Figures 220

Bibliography 310

viii
List of Figures
Figure 0.1: Photograph of Lot 112 (Portfolio Les Peintres-graveurs, 1896) 220
Figure 1.1: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Cover for L'Estampe originale, 1893 221
Figure 1.2: Intérieur de l’imprimerie lithographique de Lemercier, c. 1846 222
Figure 1.3: Photograph of the Imprimerie Paul Dupont, Paris, c. 1893 223
Figure 1.4: “Atelier d’essayage,” c. 1899 224
Figure 1.5: “Comment on fait une chromolithographie,” 1895 225
Figure 1.6: “Inauguration du buste de M. Lemercier,” c. 1884 226
Figure 1.7: Géo Blanc, L'Atelier d'Auguste Clot, 1930 227
Figure 1.8: Alfred Lemercier, Letter of attestation for Auguste Clot, 1888 228
Figure 1.9: “Le Graineur,” c. 1899 229
Figure 1.10: Letter from Auguste Clot to Auguste Rodin, 24 September 1898 230
Figure 1.11: Pierre Bonnard, L'Imprimeur Auguste Clot, c.1910 231
Figure 1.12: Loys Delteil, Clot in his atelier, date unknown 232
Figure 2.1: Maurice Denis, Le Reflet dans la fontaine, 1897 233
Figure 2.2: “Assortiment des couleurs simples et binaires des artistes,” 1839 234
Figure 2.3: “Couleurs de Ch. Lorilleux & Cie,” 1893 235
Figure 2.4: “Ch. Lorilleux & Cie: Guide du coloriste,” date unknown 236
Figure 2.5: “Couleurs Lithographiques,” date unknown 237
Figure 2.6ab: Examples from Ch. Lorilleux & Cie color sample book, 1886 238
Figure 2.7ab: Alphonse Mucha, calendars for February and May, 1893 239
Figure 2.8: Frontispiece of Alfred Lemercier, La Lithographie française, 1899 240
Figure 2.9: Frontispiece of Traité de lithographie, 1889 241
Figure 2.10: Jules Chéret, Olympia Anciennes, 1892 242
Figure 2.11: Utagawa Hiroshige, Evening Snow at Kanbara, c. 1833-1834 243
ix
Figure 2.12: Maurice Denis, La Famille Mellerio, 1897 244
Figure 2.13: Pierre Bonnard, Birth announcement for Marie-Louise Mellerio, 1898 245
Figure 2.14: Pierre Bonnard, Cover for L'Estampe et l'affiche, 1897 246
Figure 2.15: Pierre Bonnard, Cover for La Lithographie originale en couleurs, 1898 247
Figure 2.16: Paul Signac, Trial proof of Les Bateaux, 1897-98 248
Figure 2.17: Paul Signac, Trial proof of Les Andelys, 1897 249
Figure 2.18: Maurice Denis, Trial proof of La Vie devient précieuse, discrete, 1899 250
Figure 2.19: Maurice Denis, La Vie devient précieuse, discrete, 1899 251
Figure 2.20: Théo Van Rysselberghe, La Jetée, 1901 252
Figure 3.1: Auguste Clot after Auguste Rodin, c. 1902 253
Figure 3.2: Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael, Judgement of Paris, c. 1510-20 254
Figure 3.3: Jakob Christoffel Le Bon after Nicholas Blakey, Louis XV, 1739 255
Figure 3.4: Godefroy Engelmann, Portrait After Greuze, 1837 256
Figure 3.5: Édouard Manet, Polichinelle, 1874 (color lithograph) 257
Figure 3.6: Édouard Manet, Polichinelle, 1874 (lithograph) 258
Figure 3.7: Édouard Manet, Polichinelle, 1874 (lithograph, gouache, watercolor) 259
Figure 3.8: Auguste Clot, Detail of “Montres XVIe-XVIIe Siècle,” 1890-1892 260
Figure 3.9: Auguste Clot, “Broderie Flandre XVIe Siècle,” 1890-1892 261
Figure 3.10: Auguste Clot, Detail of “Bijoux XVIe-XVIIe Siècle,” 1890-1892 262
Figure 3.11: Auguste Rodin, La Fortune priée, c. 1896-1900 263
Figure 3.12: Auguste Rodin, Femme agenouillée, c. 1900 264
Figure 3.13: Auguste Clot after Auguste Rodin, c. 1902 265
Figure 3.14: Auguste Rodin, Femme assise se peignant, tête basse, 1898-1902 266
Figure 3.15: Auguste Clot after Auguste Rodin, c. 1902 267
Figure 3.16: René Giton, Rodin, Beuret, and Clot in the garden, 1899 268
x
Figure 3.17: Odilon Redon, Béatrice, 1897 (color lithograph) 269
Figure 3.18: Odilon Redon, Béatrice, 1885 (pastel on paper) 270
Figure 3.19: Odilon Redon, Béatrice, 1897 (color lithograph) 271
Figure 3.20: Odilon Redon, Béatrice, 1897 (color lithograph) 272
Figure 3.21: Paul Cézanne, Petits baigneurs, 1896-97 (color lithograph) 273
Figure 3.22: Paul Cézanne, Petits baigneurs, 1896-97 (lithograph, graphite, watercolor) 274
Figure 3.23: Paul Cézanne, Baigneurs, c. 1890 275
Figure 3.24: Henri-Edmond Cross, Aux Champs-Elysées, c. 1898 276
Figure 3.25: Henri-Edmond Cross, Les Nourrices aux Champs-Elysées, 1897 277
Figure 3.26: Maurice Denis, Study for Nos âmes en des gestes lents, 1892-1899 278
Figure 3.27: Maurice Denis, Nos âmes en des gestes lents, 1899 279
Figure 3.28: Maurice Denis, La Dormeuse, 1895 280
Figure 3.29: Maurice Denis, Allégorie, 1898 (color lithograph) 280
Figure 3.30: Maurice Denis, Study for Allégorie, 1892-1899 (pastel, graphite on paper) 281
Figure 3.31: Maurice Denis, Study for Allégorie, 1892-1899 (pastel, graphite on paper) 282
Figure 3.32: Maurice Denis, Study for Allégorie, 1892-1899 (pastel on paper) 283
Figure 3.33: Paul Signac, Les Andelys, 1895 284
Figure 3.34: Paul Signac, Les Andelys, Les Laveuses, 1886 285
Figure 3.35: Paul Signac, Le Port, Saint-Tropez, c. 1897-1898 286
Figure 3.36: Paul Signac, Le Clocher de Saint-Tropez, 1896 287
Figure 3.37: Paul Signac, Bateaux à Flessingue, 1895 288
Figure 3.38: Paul Signac, Le Port de Volendam, 1896 289
Figure 3.39: Paul Signac, La Bouée, 1894 290
Figure 3.40: Paul Signac, La Bouée rouge, Saint-Tropez, 1895 291
Figure 4.1: Pierre Bonnard, Exhibition poster for Les Peintres-graveurs, 1896 292
xi
Figure 4.2: Pierre Bonnard, Maison dans la cour, 1899 293
Figure 4.3: Pierre Bonnard, Colophon for, Parallèlement, 1900 294
Figure 4.4: Maurice Denis, Nativité, 1907 295
Figure 4.5: Eugène Carrière, Nelly Carrière: Les Yeux clos, 1895 296
Figure 4.6: Matrise stone 297
Figure 4.7: Justification du tirage for Le Jardin des supplices, 1902 298
Figure 4.8: Justification du tirage for Verlaine, Parallèlement, 1900 299
Figure 4.9: Collection de M.A.C. (Hôtel Drouot, 1919), cover 300
Figure 4.10: Collection de M.A.C. (Hôtel Drouot, 1919), 2-3 301
Figure 4.11: Collection de M.A.C. (Hôtel Drouot, 1919), 22-23 302
Figure 4.12: Pierre Bonnard, Trial proof for Coin de rue vue d’en haut, 1899 303
Figure 4.13: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Le Pendu, 1895 304
Figure 4.14: Letter from Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to Arthur Huc, undated 305
Figure 4.15: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, May Belfort, 1895 306
Figure 4.16: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, May Milton, 1895 307
Figure 4.17: Letter from Henry Stern to Edmond Sagot, 11 March 1898 308
Figure E.1: Richard Serra, Ballast I, 2011 309

xii
Abstract
“Collaboration in Color: Master Printers, Dealer-Publishers, and Avant-Garde
Lithography in Late Nineteenth-Century France” examines an important period in the history of
art to demonstrate the centrality of limited edition original color lithographs and the network of
dealer-publishers, printers, and artists who produced and marketed them as part of the
development of modern art and the art market in 1890s France. Inspired by the artistic posters of
Jules Chéret, avant-garde artists turned to chromolithography—a medium that allowed them to
draw directly on stone but also required expertise in chemical printing processes. Lacking skill
and interest in the latter, these Impressionist, Neo-Impressionist, Nabi, and Symbolist artists
collaborated with master printers to produce art color lithographs. This dissertation examines the
printer’s industrial training, manual labor, and technical expertise in color, the medium’s
defining aesthetic and material element, by considering the exemplary case of Auguste Clot. It
traces Clot’s collaborative practice with artists and considers the strategies undertaken by dealer-
publishers, such as Ambroise Vollard, to promote and circulate modern art prints, which
ultimately required the public erasure of the printer’s involvement. Attending closely to period
discourses, technical manuals, the print trade press, surviving correspondence, the objects
themselves, and the printmaking process, this dissertation reveals how modern artistic values
were articulated through the intersection of art and industry. It recasts the history of modern art
through the lens of artisanal labor, artistic process, and collaboration and illuminates modern
artists’ and the modern art market’s reliance on the graphic arts, and the printer, in particular—a
legacy that continues until today.
1

INTRODUCTION

On September 17, 2019, a rare album of original prints sold for 543,000 GBP (around
$678,000) at Sotheby’s in London. The twenty-two prints together made up a complete set of
French dealer-publisher Ambroise Vollard’s 1896 portfolio Les Peintres-graveurs. The album
consisted of thirteen lithographs (ten in color), four etchings, two drypoints, two woodcuts, and
one embossed print by the period’s most famous peintres-graveurs, or painter-printmakers. To
advertise the portfolio, Sotheby’s website featured a selection of prints. [Figure 0.1] The central
image is recognizable immediately as an artwork by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, Le Soir
(1896), with its undulating red sky and rippling landscape from which emerge ghostly figures
with blank stares. Nestled beneath the Munch, counter clockwise, is a monochrome etching by
Belgian Neo-Impressionist painter Théo Van Rysselberghe, Le Café-concert, Lizzie Aubrey
(1896), framing a dark concert hall performance typical of fin-de-siècle Paris. Nabi painter Pierre
Bonnard’s color lithograph, La Petite blanchisseuse (1896), overlaps Van Rysselberghe’s scene.
In characteristically flat and muted tones, Bonnard’s print features a young girl shuffling along a
road, weighed down by a basket of laundry. Continuing around the fan of prints we see a color
lithograph by Bonnard’s Nabi colleague Édouard Vuillard, Le Jardin des Tuileries (1896),
wherein a Parisian park scene materializes from layers of pastel hues and patterns. Vuillard’s
print is partially obscured by Symbolist artist Odilon Redon’s Vieux Chevalier (1896), which
depicts a somber figure accompanied by fantastical creatures, characteristic of the painter’s
extensive oeuvre in monochrome lithography. Finally, after Art Nouveau artist Georges Auriol’s
2
cover sheet, Félix Vallotton’s monochrome woodcut by, Le Premier janvier (1896), compresses
and crops a bustling urban scene, a subject the artist frequently explored in the medium. The
assortment displays some of the album’s most prized holdings, prints by artists now canonical in
the history of modern art. In particular, the celebrated names of the painters who contributed
color lithographs—including Munch, Bonnard, Vuillard, as well as Pierre-Auguste Renoir and
Maurice Denis—set the high price of the album. These artists all shared a printer: Auguste Clot.
The Sotheby’s lot description does not include the printer’s name amongst the
information pertaining to the album. Rather, it provides details regarding the prints’ rarity and
provenance, information of interest to potential buyers, such as private collectors, museum
curators, or librarians with holdings of artists’ prints. In addition to listing the artist and title for
each print, the lot description notes that of the assembled prints, seventeen of twenty-two
included a number hand-written by the artist, and twenty of twenty-two prints bore an artist’s
signature, clearly evident on the carefully arranged prints by Munch, Bonnard, and Vuillard in
the Sotheby’s image. Additionally, the lot description informs prospective buyers that Vollard’s
portfolio was a limited edition of 100 and that the title page contains the publisher’s monogram.
These details exhibit the marketing practices related to artists’ prints developed during the course
of the nineteenth century and codified by Vollard in the 1890s.
At the time of its publication in 1896, Vollard’s album was a commercial failure. Vollard
had trouble selling the copies he had commissioned, often selling off prints individually. The
breakdown of his albums is the main reason Sotheby’s could market the complete status of the
portfolio as a rare, desirable attribute of the lot. Vollard went on to publish a second album of
various artists’ prints in 1897—featuring many prints by the same avant-garde painters included
in 1896—but a proposed third album went unpublished. In 1896, the portfolios sold for 150
3
francs each, but the price of production was also high, likely around 5,500 francs total.
1
Clot
charged a hefty fee to print the color lithographs. Although Vollard initially sought a more
affordable means of printing, his artists insisted on working only with Clot because of his
considerable skill, particularly with color. The color lithographs included in the album—products
of Clot’s labor and collaboration—ultimately determined its steep price at Sotheby’s 123 years
later.
Art historians have largely characterized Vollard’s interest in the graphic arts as a passion
project; he ostensibly had to finance his publications using funds earned from the more lucrative
sales of paintings and sculptures because his print albums and livres de peintre were not
financially viable. Even as the reputations of artists he commissioned grew, the graphic art
projects were so expensive to produce that they never returned a profit on Vollard’s investment.
What scholars have overlooked, however, is that Vollard’s financial commitment to promoting
the graphic arts was a long-term project. The dealer understood that artists working across
multiple media would ultimately build and expand their reputations on the art market for their
paintings as well. Indeed, the prints and books that Vollard published and Clot printed now exist
in private, museum, and library collections across the globe; these artists’ names and aesthetics
circulated in print, helping to shore up their fame as avant-garde painters. Over a century after
the album’s publication, the 2019 purchase of the 1896 portfolio for over half a million dollars
certainly confirmed that the labor, collaboration, creativity, financial investment, and marketing
strategies of those involved in the production had finally paid off, if over a hundred years too late
to ensure such work an exceptional economic reward in its own day.
In this dissertation, I return to the historical origin of this art market phenomenon to

1
Vollard Archives, MS 421 (4,4), fol. 69, Centre de Documentation, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
4
examine what were in the fin de siècle new art forms: color lithographic artists’ prints and livres
d’artiste, or artists’ books. I consider the technical and creative role played by printers such as
Auguste Clot in color lithography, a printmaking process that was industrialized in France over
the course of the nineteenth century. Relying on his industrial training within the walls of his
small atelier to execute fine art color lithographs in collaboration with avant-garde artists, Clot’s
acts of translation blurred the boundaries between reproductive and original prints. In turn,
dealer-publishers such as Ambroise Vollard leveraged historical traditions of fine printmaking to
capitalize on this new visual art form by bringing it to the market as limited edition works of
avant-garde art. This dissertation ultimately reveals the significant role of print in the
development, promotion, and circulation of modern art by examining the collaboration between
dealer-publishers, printers, and artists in the production of limited edition art prints in late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France.

The Color Revolution
Alois Senefelder invented lithography around 1796 in Germany, and the process quickly
appealed to printers in Europe because of its ease and efficiency.
2
As a planographic process, the
medium did not require the laborious work of carving wood or engraving metal characteristic of
the early modern print methods of woodcut and engraving. In lithography, printers and artists
drew on the surface of a chemically prepared stone, which was then inked and pulled through the
press; as long as the stone could be re-inked, it could produce thousands of impressions. Color

2
The date ascribed to lithography’s invention ranges from 1796 to 1799. Information is inconsistent, even
in Senefelder’s own numerous accounts of the medium’s invention. Senefelder likely invented the process
around 1796 and patented it in Bavaria in 1799, in London in 1801, and in Paris in 1802. See Michael
Twyman, Breaking the Mould: The First 100 Years of Lithography (London: British Library, 2001), 4,
16.

5
printing in lithography was possible from its invention and involved the inking of multiple stones
and the layering of ink on paper by pulling one stone after another through the press. This
process at first remained difficult, but in 1837 in France, the printer Godefroy Engelmann
patented a frame that simplified and streamlined the process. The development of steam presses
in the second half of the nineteenth century then enabled the large-scale printing of
chromolithographs, or “chromos.” From the 1870s, figures such as Jules Chéret popularized
chromolithography, and his artistic posters inspired many avant-garde artists to work in the
medium.
The complexity of printing in color through this newly streamlined process, however,
rendered necessary the involvement of printers who specialized in color ink mixing and printing;
printers such as Clot became essential collaborators, working closely with artists on the
conception and production of color and helping them realize their ideas through a medium in
which they were untrained. Clot was one of a handful of printers with whom avant-garde artists
worked in color lithography in the 1890s, a group that included Père Cotelle, Henry Stern,
Édouard Duchatel, Edward Ancourt, and Eugène Verneau. Whether Clot was exceptional is not
entirely evident, although among these printers, Clot worked with the largest array of avant-
garde artists.
3
Furthermore, critic André Mellerio argued that Clot was the most capable printer
of the period.
4
Nevertheless while contemporaries lauded Clot for his technical skill with color
during his career as a master printer, since then, emphasis on the names and careers of the
celebrated artists with whom he printed, including Paul Cézanne, Pierre Bonnard, Henri de

3
While rich archival material, now housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, provides insight into
the scope and nature of Clot’s labor, craft, and collaboration, I have yet to locate similarly extensive
materials for the other printers.
4
André Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, trans. Margaret Needham, in The Color Revolution: Color
Lithography in France, 1890-1900, eds. Phillip Dennis Cate and Sinclair Hamilton Hitchings (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University press, 1978), 92.
6
Toulouse-Lautrec, and Auguste Rodin, has marginalized Clot’s key role in the history of the
prints’ production.
Since the 1978 publication of Phillip Dennis Cate and Sinclair Hitchings’s The Color
Revolution: Color Lithography in France, 1890-1900, art historians have been interested in the
proliferation, or “revolution,” of color prints, posters, books, theater programs, illustrated
journals, and other forms of graphic art in fin-de-siècle France.
5
Recent scholarship has
determined the significance of posters in particular as an art form appealing to artists, such as
Chéret, who executed “original” designs in the medium. As Ruth Iskin argues in The Poster: Art,
Advertising, Design, and Collecting, 1860s–1900s (2014), the growing popularity of posters
between 1860 and 1900 resulted in critical recognition of such objects as art.
6
Period critics,
artists, and collectors understood posters by painters such as Bonnard and Lautrec as art defined
by the originality of their designs, a quality seen as more important than their commercial
function. Laura Anne Kalba’s 2017 book, Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce,
Technology, and Art, explores the impact of new color technologies on visual and material
culture in France from the 1850s to 1910s. In a chapter devoted to chromolithography, Kalba
examines technological advances, such as the emergence of steam presses in the second half of
the nineteenth century, that enabled the mass production and circulation of chromolithographs in
the public sphere in the form of trade cards and posters.
7
Other art historians, including Richard
Thomson (2000), Mary Weaver Chapin (2002; 2005), Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho (2014;
2017), Patricia Mainardi (2017), and Britany Salsbury with Iskin (2020), offer crucial

5
Phillip Dennis Cate and Sinclair Hitchings, The Color Revolution: Color Lithography in France, 1890-
1900 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Art Gallery, 1978).
6
Ruth E. Iskin, The Poster: Art, Advertising, Design, and Collecting, 1860s–1900s (Hanover, NH:
Dartmouth College Press, 2014).
7
Laura Anne Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce, Technology, and Art (University
Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2017).
7
sociocultural context for chromolithography in their studies of the rise of color prints in
nineteenth-century France.
8
They consider the place of such prints in the collecting practices of
an emerging middle class, cabaret and entertainment culture, and the illustrated press. With the
exception of curator Pat Gilmour’s fundamental 1988 study of Auguste Clot, in which she
introduced and surveyed his myriad print projects, these studies do not consider the printer’s or
any printer’s significant contribution to the aesthetics of color lithographs.
9
Rather, studies of the
color revolution emphasize the designs’ originality and the artists’ significance as crucial factors
that elevated such prints to the realm of art.
Although industrial developments are at the core of studies such as Iskin’s and Kalba’s, I
introduce key material produced in the color revolution but overlooked thus far in these histories:
color printing ink. Printers such as Clot used new printing inks that were mass produced in the
nineteenth century by firms such as Ch. Lorilleux et Cie. The material production of color,
essential to the artistic status of these prints, remained squarely in the printer’s domain through
his preparation, mixing, and layering of color ink. I also consider the technical process through
which Clot produced color lithographs. While Clot’s techniques and materials tied his practice to

8
See Richard Thomson, “Styling the City: Observation and Perception in Print Albums of the 1890s,” in
Prints Abound: Paris in the 1890s, From the Collections of Virginia and Ira Jackson and the National
Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art; London: Lund Humphries, 2000), 48-59;
Mary Weaver Chapin, “Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Café-Concert: Printmaking, Publicity, and
Celebrity in Fin-de-Siècle Paris” (PhD diss., New York University, 2002); Mary Weaver Chapin, “Henri
de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Café-Concert” in Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, eds. Richard Thomson,
Phillip Dennis Cate, and Mary Weaver Chapin (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2005), 46-63;
Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho and Marije Vellekoop, eds., Printmaking in Paris: The Rage for Prints at
the Fin de Siècle (Brussels: Mercatorfonds, 2013); Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho, ed., Prints in Paris
1900: From Elite to the Street (Brussels: Mercatorfonds with Yale University Press, 2017); Patricia
Mainardi, Another World: Nineteenth-Century Illustrated Print Culture (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2017); and Ruth E. Iskin and Britany Salsbury, eds., Collecting Prints, Posters, and Ephemera:
Perspectives in a Global World (London and New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020).
9
Pat Gilmour, “Cher Monsieur Clot…Auguste Clot and his Role as a Colour Lithographer” in Lasting
Impressions: Lithography as an Art, ed. Pat Gilmour (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1988), 129-182.
8
the print production at commercial firms such as the Imprimerie Lemercier, in his atelier, Clot
diverged from industrial processes in various ways. In his small atelier, he worked as the sole
printer and operated a hand press, rather than a steam press. I contend that these practices
signified and delivered manual, artisanal work; in turn, the manual nature of his involvement
contributed to the perceived artistic status of the prints he pulled. Attending closely to the color
lithographic printmaking process and to Clot’s involvement, I expand on Gilmour’s important
study by investigating the role of the printer in the material production of color lithographs. I
propose that all “original” posters and prints in fact emerged through collaborative work,
although their legitimacy as works of art has hinged, in our time, on their singular artistic
authorship. In order for such prints to be distinguished from commercial prints and to enter the
fine art market as original artworks, the printer’s involvement and ties to industry had to be
erased from the surface of prints and our subsequent narratives surrounding them.

The Printer’s Manual Labor
After training and working at the Imprimerie Lemercier, around 1895, Auguste Clot
opened his own print atelier, where artists and publishers sought his expertise and collaboration.
Clot consolidated labor—divided between many printers at Lemercier—into the singular,
artisanal role of the master, collaborative printer. His manual work and technical expertise and
his atelier’s small, intimate space seemingly helped to elevate the prints pulled from his press
above the chromos that emerged from large firms at the hands of numerous printers. It was
Clot’s skill with color in particular that drew artists to his atelier where they collaborated with
the printer on the unique color palettes that they believed made their prints original and avant-
garde. Clot’s skill with color was matched by his ability to translate the diverse hues and material
9
textures of other color media into color lithography without creating final products that looked
like chromos. Clot emerged from an industrial, commercial setting and used the tools and skills
he developed there to help create a new art form: the artist’s original color lithograph.
Industry and art, although seen by contemporary critics in opposition, here were
intertwined; Clot skillfully employed the tools of industry to hide the ties between art prints and
their commercial counterparts. Taking up the constructed binary relationship between craft and
industry explored in the work of craft historian Glenn Adamson, this dissertation considers the
value and differentiation of Clot’s manual work in relation to industrial processes.
10
Although he
continued many of the same techniques he had developed in the commercial firm of Lemercier,
critics, artists, and publishers saw Clot’s work at his small-scale atelier—wherein all prints were
pulled manually on a hand press—as artisanal, in direct contrast to the industrial production of
Lemercier. The value of Clot’s contribution to these projects, I contend, relied in part on his
ability to instill in these printed multiples a handmade quality.
The manual aspect of Clot’s work is central to my study. The dissertation draws on
histories and theories of labor, craft, and industry to reframe the nature of Clot’s involvement in
the lithographic process. In The Craftsman (2008), sociologist Richard Sennett rethinks
hierarchies of labor, offering a theoretical approach to manual labor and the development of
technical skill.
11
Sennett contends that manual labor and intellectual thought are interwoven; a
craftsman develops skill through a rigorous trained practice, meaning that manual technique
involves the thought and mental engagement of the practitioner. Sennett offers a framework for
taking seriously Clot’s manual labor—the intricate and complex aspects of his work that often

10
Glenn Adamson, The Invention of Craft (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
11
Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).
10
relied on experience and understanding of how a process should “feel.”
12
I also engage with the
recent work of historian Anthony Grafton, Inky Fingers: The Making of Books in Early Modern
Europe (2020), in which he examines the intersection of intellectual and manual labor in the
production of early modern books.
13
Grafton models a method for examining the collaborative
production in print shops, showing that scholars produced humanist criticism not only in private
studies, but also in sites of print production. He argues that their work was shaped by the
material space and methods of book printing.
By examining the manual work of printers such as Clot, this dissertation contributes to a
growing body of recent art historical scholarship that addresses questions of labor, process,
materiality, and technology.
14
While Anthea Callen’s The Work of Art: Plein Air Painting and
Artistic Identity in Nineteenth-Century France (2015) and Kim Grant’s All About Process: The
Theory and Discourse of Modern Artistic Labor (2017) address the artist’s labor and artistic
process, they do not focus on the labor of those involved in the production of artworks who are
not the artist, such as craftsmen, technicians, assistants, or other collaborators. My dissertation
adds to and expands this discourse through the study of the printer’s work, the collaborative
relations between artists and printers, the overlap of creative and manual labor, and the

12
Sennett, “The Hand,” in The Craftsman, 149-178.
13
Anthony Grafton, Inky Fingers: The Making of Books in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA;
London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020).
14
These publications include Julia Bryan-Wilson’s Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War
Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), which explores the sociopolitical context
surrounding the redefinition of artistic labor in the 1960s and 1970s United States; Anthea Callen’s The
Work of Art: Plein Air Painting and Artistic Identity in Nineteenth-Century France (London: Reaktion
Books, 2015), which investigates the Impressionists’ artistic labor through close attention to the material
processes of their artistic production; Glenn Adamson and Julia Bryan-Wilson, Art in the Making: Artists
and their Materials from the Studio to Crowdsourcing (London: Thames & Hudson, 2016), which
considers the myriad modes of artistic production in contemporary art, though none of its chapters,
broken down by medium, address printmaking; and Kim Grant’s All About Process: The Theory and
Discourse of Modern Artistic Labor (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2017), which
traces historical shifts in the value placed on artistic process.
11
intersection of artistic vision and technical skill on the surface of the print matrix.

Prints as Publicity in the Art Market
In his small atelier, Clot worked closely with artists, many of whom were painters, on
the production of original color lithographs. The main financial backing for these projects came
from Ambroise Vollard, Clot’s most consistent client. Beginning around 1896, Vollard, whose
business focused primarily on the sale of modern paintings and sculpture, took up publishing. He
commissioned contemporary painters to collaborate with Clot in the production of original color
lithographs, meaning that these artists executed an idea directly in the print medium rather than
using print to reproduce their paintings. Many of these avant-garde artists, including
Impressionist, Nabi, Symbolist, and Neo-Impressionist painters, wished to experiment with
color. As Clot controlled the material of color, their work with him was often collaborative rather
than hierarchical. The final color of the resulting prints was worked out through trial and error,
reactions, and adjustments during the trial proof process. Clot collaborated with these artists to
translate their ideas, models, sketches, and extant artwork into lithography.
The status of the art color lithograph remained tenuous in the 1890s, however, due to the
lingering associations of the medium with mass commercial printing. Because Clot produced art
prints through similar techniques to those used commercially, Vollard developed additional
means to construct value around these objects. The dissertation investigates the form and concept
of the limited edition art print. I attend to the specific techniques the dealer-publisher, printer,
and artist employed to create a perception of luxury, artificial rarity, and singular authorship.
Strategies included limiting the edition size, canceling plates, numbering prints, and including
the artist’s signature while omitting the printer’s name from the print’s surface. All of these
12
material and rhetorical signifiers helped Vollard promote the prints as original and rare in order
to elevate them above commercial, reproductive prints made through a similar printing process.
The projects that emerged from Clot’s atelier were labor intensive and expensive to
produce. Vollard was nevertheless committed to his publications, but because they often did not
sell well, some art historians have characterized his interest as a side, passion project.
15
This
dissertation shows, however, that Vollard also used these art prints as publicity, circulating the
names and building up the reputations of artists whose painting and sculpture he also exhibited
and sold. By choosing to publish the graphic works of only contemporary painters, Vollard
aimed to expand the market for modern art. The limited edition prints offered a variation of the
artist’s work in a more affordable format.
The promotion and growing popularity of limited edition art prints in the latter half of the
nineteenth century coincided with the weakening of the Salon, the state-sponsored institution
behind the production, display, and circulation of art that had dominated the art world in France
since the seventeenth century.
16
In the 1860s and 1870s, artists sought out new venues in which
to display and sell their art outside of this long-standing structure. First taken up in the 1860s

15
See Una E. Johnson, Ambroise Vollard, Éditeur: Prints, Books, Bronzes (New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 1977), 22; Rebecca A. Rabinow, “Vollard’s Livres d’Artiste,” in Cézanne to Picasso:
Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, ed. Rebecca A. Rabinow (New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 2006), 197-212.
16
Founded in 1667, for nearly two centuries the Academy dominated the French art world. Artists trained
at the École des Beaux-Arts, exhibited every year at the Salon, and competed over the course of their
careers for honors and awards (such as the Prix de Rome) granted by jurors of the Salons. Based in Paris,
the French Academy system was more centralized than those in other European countries and was
supported by the French government. While this meant that artists who were successful within the rigid
structure ensured secure careers, those who were not had no alternative venues in which to exhibit.
Furthermore, the Academy system did not welcome younger artists’ growing interest in artistic
experimentation at the end of the nineteenth century. The jurors’ taste was typically conservative and
traditional, and they favored large-scale paintings with historical, religious, or classical motifs. Intended
for public institutions or upper class manor houses, paintings of this size and subject matter were found
unsuitable by the rising middle class for their more modest homes. For more on the Academy, see Robert
Jensen, Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 23-
24.
13
during the etching revival, original printmaking became increasingly interesting to artists in the
1870s and 1880s as Impressionist painters, such as Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, and Mary
Cassatt, experimented in the graphic arts. Artists’ original prints became an important part of the
business of art dealers such as Paul Durand-Ruel and later Vollard; they cultivated strategies to
promote and market the painters they represented to a growing clientele of middle class buyers.
By examining the significance of the graphic arts to Vollard’s marketing practices, this
dissertation makes an intervention in the histories of the art market and the end of the Salon by
arguing for the critical role of print culture in the formation and growth of the modern art market.
Harrison and Cynthia White’s foundational text Careers and Canvases: Institutional Change in
the French Painting World (1965) traces the institutional structure of the art market and how it
formed, arguing that the academy system was replaced by the “dealer-critic system” in the
second half of the nineteenth century.
17
They illustrate how the Academy failed to adjust its
practices in response to shifting social and economic conditions in France, consequently ensuring
its loss of control over the authority to evaluate art that it had guarded for two hundred years. As
the Whites show, a new structure developed starting in the mid-nineteenth century and was
crystallized with the Impressionist exhibitions outside of the Salon beginning in the 1870s. They
contend that Durand-Ruel became a tastemaker, ultimately creating a market for Impressionist
painting, which had been criticized harshly by both the public and the Academy. In Marketing
Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (1994), Robert Jensen complicates the Whites’ narrative of
Impressionism’s heroic triumph over conservative Salon painting by arguing that dealers
purposefully promoted the reputation of the avant-garde artists fighting to break away from the
rigid structure of the Academy in order to naturalize Impressionism as the dominant artistic style

17
Harrison and Cynthia White, Careers and Canvases: Institutional Change in the French Painting
World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965).
14
in the period. Jensen shows how dealers used retrospectives—typically reserved for celebrated
artists who had already died—to promote living artists they represented in order to establish a
public interest in their work. Jensen suggests that by adopting the Academy’s exhibition
practices, the dealer system contributed in its own way to fabricating canonical histories of art.
My study builds on Jensen’s analysis by looking at other important ways that dealers
promoted and disseminated the work and names of their artists. I show that prints proved to be an
essential marketing tool in the emergence of the modern art market. Dealers’ publicity methods
typically included exhibitions, published criticism, and the sale of graphic artwork. Indeed, some
of the most influential modern art dealers, including Durand-Ruel, Vollard, and later Daniel-
Henry Kahnweiler, exhibited and sold limited edition prints along with paintings and sculptures
by the same artists. Because prints were original artworks that were also produced as multiples,
they were far less expensive than singular paintings. Dealers sold them to print and painting
collectors, to other dealers and publishers, and even to other artists. From 1889 through 1893
Durand-Ruel hosted several exhibitions of works by peintres-graveurs, marketing their prints as
original and exhibiting them alongside paintings and drawings by the same artists. Durand-Ruel
did not commission prints but capitalized on the increasing popularity of artists’ prints and the
growing and enthusiastic client base that could afford them, even when they could not afford
paintings by the same artists. Beginning in 1896, Vollard continued Durand-Ruel’s practice of
exhibiting original prints by artists. Unlike many of his art dealer colleagues, however, Vollard
interwove the graphic arts into his business by consistently commissioning prints from artists
whose painting and sculpture he also sold. Print culture played a key role in the emergence of the
dealer system and the decline of the Salon system, one that art historians have overlooked.
I also build on Jensen’s work by considering the continuities between the Salon system
15
and the avant-garde art market, typically regarded as a break or divergence from tradition, and
ask what practices from the prior structure carried over into the new system and why. Scholars,
including Patricia Mainardi in The End of the Salon: Art and the State in the Early Third
Republic (1993), have challenged dominant narratives of modern art’s origins in a rupture from
the academic institution by shedding light on the history of the Salon and its complicated
demise.
18
Other scholars have constructed the history of nineteenth-century art outside traditional
narratives of modernism; Stephen Bann, for example, recovers an obscured history of the
practices of reproducing Salon paintings through engraving in Parallel Lines: Printmakers,
Painters, and Photographers in Nineteenth-Century France (2001).
19
Bann shows that
reproductive prints proved important within the academic canon because reproductions—such as
those that Goupil & Cie. published—contributed to the reputation-building of Salon painters. In
turn, the Academy and critics considered reproductive engravings, not as copies, but the
printmaker’s personal interpretation or translation of painting into print. While other art
historians, including Michael Baxandall, have studied the relation between dealers and artists,
Bann also addresses the working relationship between dealers and printers, an important and
often missing node in this network.
20

My dissertation draws on Bann’s study of networks and examines a similar practice from
the 1870s onward following developments in chromolithography. In order to sell their artworks
outside the institutional structure of the Salon, painters and art dealers relied on prints—marketed
as original—and the printers with whom they worked to promote their reputations. Scholars of

18
Patricia Mainardi, The End of the Salon: Art and the State in the Early Third Republic (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993).
19
Stephen Bann, Parallel Lines: Printmakers, Painters, and Photographers in Nineteenth-Century
France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
20
Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1985).
16
the color revolution emphasize the avant-garde’s deviation from traditional academic practices
and highlight the differences between the artists’ original works and reproductive prints. While
these prints were indeed mostly of original design, I contend that they nevertheless served a
similar function as reproductive engravings in the Salon system. These “original” prints can thus
be understood conceptually as a form of reproductive print, either of a specific artwork or as a
means of capturing the painter’s autographic gesture. Even when color lithographs displayed
unique designs by painters, the prints still illustrate similar themes and exhibit aesthetic and
stylistic parallels to the painters’ work in oil on canvas and watercolor, graphite, or pastel on
paper. In other words, these prints were valued for their “painterly” qualities and for the way
they captured an artist’s distinct aesthetic style.

Histories of Print and Manual Reproduction
In considering the relationship between color lithographs pulled by Clot and paintings by
the same artists, the dissertation contributes to the history of print. Scholars typically examine
chromolithography within the modern, industrial consumer culture of the late nineteenth century.
The industrial context of Clot’s work proves central in my study, but I also consider how his
work aligns in key ways with early modern forms of printmaking and the legacies and revivals of
such practices in the nineteenth century.
Clot’s practice intersects with a longer history of the relationship between print and
painting, a dominant theme in the historiography of print. Scholarship that addresses this
relationship has primarily followed two avenues: a focus on original prints by painters or on
printed reproductions of painting. The privileging of the original print by painter-printmakers
follows a nineteenth-century shift in thinking about the relationship between original and
17
reproductive prints. Historians attribute this binary to Austrian print scholar Adam von Bartsch’s
Le Peintre graveur (1803-1821), a multi-volume study of Old Master prints in which Bartsch
distinguished original and autographic prints from reproductive prints. Other seminal works in
the twentieth century, such as Walter Benjamin’s 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of its
Mechanical Reproducibility” and William Ivins’s 1953 Prints and Visual Communication, have
continued to shape the field and its discussion of reproductions.
21
Since 2000, print scholars and
art historians, including Bann (2001; 2013), Margaret Morgan Grasselli (2003), Lisa Pon (2004),
Rebecca Zorach (2005), Christopher Wood (2008), and Kristel Smentek (2014), have expanded
our conception of the reproductive print, unpacking how these images functioned as replicas,
variations, translations, and interpretations.
22

Engaging with this scholarship that complicates our ideas about reproduction, I contend
that much of Clot’s work in color lithography incorporated interpretation and translation through
manual reproduction. In his atelier, Clot collaborated with artists on the production of prints, as
well as reproduced extant artworks in print. I show that through his translation of artists’ work
into lithography, Clot adapted the role of the reproductive engraver. The reproduction of
paintings had circulated for centuries in the form of engravings, which translated color and

21
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version,”
in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, eds. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings, vol. 3, 1935-1938
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006 [1936]); William M. Ivins, Prints and Visual
Communication (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969 [1953]).
22
See Bann, Parallel Lines; Stephen Bann, Distinguished Images: Prints and the Visual Economy in
Nineteenth-Century France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013); Margaret Morgan Grasselli, ed.,
Colorful Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France (Washington, D.C:
National Gallery of Art, 2003); Lisa Pon, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the
Italian Renaissance Print (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004); Rebecca Zorach and Elizabeth
Rodini, eds., Paper Museums: The Reproductive Print in Europe, 1500–1800 (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2005); Christopher S. Wood, Forgery, Replica, Fiction: Temporalities of German
Renaissance Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008); and Kristel Smentek, Mariette and the
Science of the Connoisseur in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington, VT:
Ashgate Publishing, 2014).
18
texture through lines incised on a metal plate with a burin. The rise of chromolithography offered
a new, more inexpensive means of reproducing paintings and on a large scale. Although
accurately capturing the color and textures of extant artworks, these “chromos” soon became the
subject of harsh criticism, often seen as garish. In contrast, Clot marshaled the positive attributes
of chromolithography—its ability to translate colors, textures, and the artist’s autographic
gesture—while simplifying the color palettes of his prints and thus veiling the aspects of
chromolithography that had come to be seen as crude. Rather than creating an exact facsimile,
Clot approximated the textures and colors of other media that he translated into print.
In “The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility,” Walter Benjamin’s
account of the destruction of the original artwork’s aura through the copy does not consider the
possibilities of nuance in a translation or interpretation of one medium into another. His theory
does not recognize the copyist’s or interpreter’s skill in that translation. Clot was not merely
copying but making interpretive choices and exercising considerable technical skill in his
translation. In other words, Clot performed manual reproduction, as opposed to mechanical,
although he used a print matrix and press. In my exploration of manual reproduction in a period
of industrial printing, Winnie Won Yin Wong’s Van Gogh on Demand: China and the
Readymade, in which she investigates the reproduction of Impressionist paintings by Chinese
artists in the village of Dafen, offers important insights.
23
Wong contends that the manual nature
of these artists’ reproductions in fact reinstates a sense of Benjamin’s aura. She investigates the
paradox of authenticity that emerges from the handmade quality of these paintings, although they
are copies, for sale, that exist in multiples. I explore a similar paradox in Clot’s manual
reproduction in the context of the development of the original artist print. Contemporaries

23
See Winnie Won Yin Wong, Van Gogh on Demand: China and the Readymade (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2013), 11-16.
19
recognized Clot’s critical involvement in these prints, yet his collaboration ultimately required
erasure in order to ensure the autonomy and authenticity of the artist’s design. My project traces
the historical construction of the artist as a designer whose ideas ultimately mattered more than
their manual work and technical skill, a distinction that Wong explores in the twentieth century
through comparison of the reproductive artwork of Dafen painters and Conceptual Art.
I also examine Clot’s manual reproduction in chromolithography amidst changes in
nineteenth-century print technologies. Glossing over earlier forms of reproductive media, such as
the woodcut, engraving, and lithograph, Benjamin’s history specifically attended to
photography.
24
Yet as scholars such as Bann, Mainardi, and Michael Leja have illustrated,
although photography emerged in 1839, older print media continued to thrive.
25
In fact, the
interweaving of numerous printmaking processes characterized the nineteenth century;
engraving, etching, lithography, photography, and many hybrid processes overlapped in a
discontinuous history. The introduction of photography nevertheless altered ideas of
reproducibility and expectations of what printed images could do.
Despite photography’s existence as a reproductive medium in the 1890s, I show that
lithography worked well for the reproduction of art because printers such as Clot could translate
the vivacity and wide range of color in color lithography. Through numerous techniques and
with considerable skill, printers could capture the texture of painting, pastel, watercolor, and
other forms of drawing that were part of the color revolution. Photography could not convey this
texture, nor could it reproduce color; color photography did not emerge until Louis and Auguste

24
In Prints and Visual Communication, William Ivins also situated photography as the culmination of a
much longer history of mechanical reproduction, characterizing the invention of photography as rendering
obsolete other print technologies.
25
See Bann, Distinguished Images; Mainardi, Another World; Michael Leja, “Fortified Images for the
Masses,” Art Journal 70, no. 4 (Winter 2011): 60-83.
20
Lumière developed the autochrome, the first generally used color photographic process, in
1903.
26
Rather, in the final decades of the nineteenth century, publishers relied on hybrid photo-
relief processes, such as gillotage, to create color reproductions for journal illustration.
27
These
prints guaranteed artists wider exposure of their artwork in the public sphere, but critics
considered them inexpensive commercial color reproductions rather than luxury, original prints.
For the latter, publishers and artists thus turned to printers such as Clot. In turn, Clot’s skill
enabled him to produce luxury prints across a spectrum of reproduction, from copying extant
artworks to assisting artists in the translation of their work in paint, pastel, or watercolor into
print. Clot’s work reveals the ambiguity between originality and reproduction in this period.

Constructing the Limited Edition Original Print Album and Livre de peintre
The tension between originality and reproduction is a recurring issue in the history of
modernism. In The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (1986), Rosalind
Krauss argues that the emphasis on originality—as autonomous, self-reflexive, and singularly
authored—relies on the repression of the copy by the artist, museum, and art historian.
28
Her
essay focuses on questions of repetition, the copy, and the multiple, but she is not concerned with

26
As Kalba notes, the process of inventing the autochrome was laborious, taking many years of
experimentation. The autochrome was complex to produce and limited in its output; it required long
exposure times, the use of a cumbersome camera box, and the outcome was a unique glass negative. See
Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism, 185.
27
In 1850, Firmin Gillot developed a process that transposed via paper etched and lithographic images
and line drawings directly onto a relief zinc plate. This plate was then mounted onto a woodblock and
printed flush with the text in the letterpress, thus combining wood engraving’s ease and low cost with
lithography’s accuracy. In the 1870s, Charles Gillot refined the gillotage process, modifying it for
photography. This photo-relief printing process was originally designed to reproduce monochrome
images, but in the mid-1880s, Gillot further adjusted his process so that it could be used in color-relief
printing (also known as chromotypogravure). See Phillip Dennis Cate, “Prints Abound: Paris in the
1890s,” in Prints Abound, 16.
28
Rosalind E. Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1986).
21
commercial culture outside of the realm of high art. Neither high (fine art) nor low (ephemera),
limited edition luxury lithographs complicate our understanding of the traditional hierarchy of
the arts. In my study of the relationship between such lithographs and paintings, I engage with
the work of Nancy Troy, who expands on Krauss’s characterization of the relationship between
originals and copies by rethinking the relation between mass culture and modernism. In Couture
Culture: A Study in Modern Art and Fashion (2004), Troy investigates the interdependent
relationship between mass-produced commodities and rarified fine artworks in the context of
haute couture.
29
She offers a model for my study in her analysis of how the early twentieth-
century culture of haute couture relied on the large-scale reproduction of luxury garments for the
mass market in order to grow and thrive. Troy’s more recent study The Afterlife of Piet
Mondrian (2014) also considers the larger commercial framework surrounding the singular
artist.
30
I engage with her exploration of the intersection of fine art and popular commercial
culture and the various institutions and people, such as curators, heirs, scholars, and dealers, that
work to construct an artist’s legacy.
My dissertation also aims to integrate the history of the modern art market with that of
luxury print and book culture. The historiographies of these two subjects rarely intersect, and I
propose that their integration will show the significance of the graphic arts in the rise of the art
market. Although Vollard ventured into his publishing practice by commissioning original print
albums, he also soon began publishing livres de peintre, a medium he remained committed to
until his untimely death in 1939. The market for luxury illustrated books had a long history in
France by the time of Vollard published in 1900 his first livre de peintre, Parallèlement with text

29
Nancy J. Troy, Couture Culture: A Study in Modern Art and Fashion (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2004).
30
Nancy J. Troy, The Afterlife of Piet Mondrian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).
22
by Paul Verlaine and images by Pierre Bonnard. Luxury, illustrated books from the early modern
period and eighteenth and nineteenth centuries featured text with images by professional
illustrators as well as painters, including court painter Charles Le Brun, Rococo painter François
Boucher, and Romantic artist Eugène Delacroix. By the nineteenth century, societies of
bibliophiles abounded. Collectors primarily favored books illustrated with woodcuts, engravings,
or monochrome lithographs, although some embraced new print technologies. In The New
Bibliopolis: French Book Collectors and the Culture of Print 1880-1914 (2008), Willa
Silverman examines the culture of book production in Third Republic France, focusing on the
networks of publishers and collectors of livres de luxe, contemporary books produced as
collectible items in small editions through new technologies.
31
Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s
idea of the “market for symbolic goods,” Silverman looks at the ways in which publishers
inscribed value in these luxury books in a period of overproduction and declining quality in
commercial book printing. Silverman shows that, somewhat paradoxically, publishers used new
industrial technologies, such as gillotage, in the printing of these rare books, illustrating that the
distinctions between luxury and industrial, elite and mass culture were not as sharply defined as
previously imagined. I consider how the “material signs of distinction” that Silverman discusses
also appear in Vollard’s prints and livres de peintre, luxury prints produced through industrial
techniques. My study aims to expand upon Silverman’s by investigating the significance of such
signs of rarity and value in art prints and livres de peintre—made through the predominantly
commercial printing process of chromolithography—in the promotion of artists in the modern art
market.
Vollard’s livres de peintre both drew on and diverged from the tradition of luxury

31
Willa Z. Silverman, The New Bibliopolis: French Book Collectors and the Culture of Print, 1880-
1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008).
23
illustrated book publishing. He published books using high quality materials, limiting edition
sizes, and offering different tiers within a single publication based on the type of paper used for
printing and the inclusion of additional images. His practice also differed in keys ways from his
contemporary book publishers. Rather than hiring professional illustrators, Vollard
commissioned contemporary painters, many of whom worked in color lithography. He then
marketed their designs as original works of art, rather than illustrations. He sold his books
unbound, essentially combining the genres of the luxury illustrated book and the original print
album to create a new type of art object.
32
Vollard thus played a significant role in the emergence
of the twentieth-century format of the artist’s book, the precursors of which Anna Sigrídur Arnar
explores in The Book as Instrument: Stéphane Mallarmé, the Artist’s Book, and the
Transformation of Print Culture (2011).
33
Arnar argues for Stéphane Mallarmé’s importance in
the development of both the livre de peintre and the livre d’avant-garde, art forms that Vollard
codified at the turn of the century. Arnar shows how precedents for this format were established
by the collaboration between Édouard Manet and Mallarmé in Le Corbeau (1875). Although her
book addresses significant modern artists working in print, like Silverman, Arnar is more
invested in situating the main objects of her study within the context of the history of print
culture and the book, rather than in connection with the modern art market.
As mentioned above, limited edition prints and livres de peintre, neither singular nor
mass-produced, offered a variation of an artist’s work for a small fraction of the cost of a
painting or sculpture by the same artist. In turn, master printers hired by dealer-publishers helped
artists realize their ideas and ensured the high quality of the prints through their technical skill

32
Rabinow, “Vollard’s Livres d’Artiste,” 197.
33
Anna Sigrídur Arnar, The Book as Instrument: Stéphane Mallarmé, the Artist’s Book, and the
Transformation of Print Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).
24
and artisanal labor, further elevating these hand-made prints to the realm of “art.” I contend that
paradoxically, the status of the limited edition print as “art” required the removal of any visual
trace of the printer from the surface (for example, the printer’s name was not included on the
print, deviating from a long tradition in the history of printmaking of including multiple maker
names) and eventually from the historical narrative surrounding the works.
This dissertation reframes a well-studied period in the history of art and argues for the
centrality of printers and the importance of collaboration and commercial networks to the
emergence of modern art and the art market. In Art Worlds (1982), sociologist Howard Becker
refers to the “collective activity” behind the production of art, from the invention of the materials
and techniques an artist uses to the financial backing of art projects to the preparation of
distribution once an artwork is completed in order for it to be seen, displayed, and bought.
Behind each artwork is an “extensive division of labor” amongst those involved in the “network
of cooperation.”
34
I trace the network that contributed to the emergence of the idea of the
singular, autonomous artist and artistic oeuvre, engaging with recent work such as Nadya Bair’s
The Decisive Network: Magnum Photos and the Postwar Image Market (2020).
35
Bair’s study
maps the network behind Magnum photographers such as Henri-Cartier Bresson—including
editors, writers, assistants, publishers, and spouses—to recognize photojournalism as a
collaborative and collective endeavor.
The artwork, Becker contends, “always shows signs of that cooperation.”
36
Looking
closely at such “signs of cooperation” in original color lithographs, I examine the network
behind the production of such prints and show the importance of the master printer’s contribution

34
Howard S. Becker, Art Worlds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 6, ix.
35
Nadya Bair, The Decisive Network: Magnum Photos and the Postwar Image Market (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2020).
36
Becker, Art Worlds, 1.
25
to the color revolution in the graphic arts at a time when chromolithography remained associated
with industrialization. In turn, I argue that because of the significance of color prints in
promoting avant-garde artists, the color revolution was in fact instrumental to the rise of the art
market. By examining the networks through which art prints were produced and marketed at a
key moment of transition from the Salon to the dealer system in late nineteenth-century France,
this dissertation recasts the history of modern art through the intersection of artistic process,
collaboration, and artisanal labor.

Dissertation Organization
The dissertation returns to the late 1890s Paris, and the vibrant printed visual culture
characteristic of this period. Rather than focusing on the creative work of artists, the business of
art dealers, the collecting practices of print enthusiasts, or the transformation of Parisian streets
through colorful posters pasted everywhere, this story begins instead in the printer’s atelier. It
traces the production of print, taking seriously the printer’s role and his materials, techniques,
and expertise. The dissertation takes the studied dealer-artist relationship and expands it,
illustrating an overlooked but essential aspect of this history that took place in the printer’s
atelier. The history of the printer and his work, I show, reveals the intersections of art and
industry and illuminates the reasons why the printer’s collaboration, manual labor, and expertise
had to be erased in order for the prints he pulled to enter the market as fine art.
The first chapter focuses on the development of the lithographic print shop and the labor
printers performed in such spaces. The chapter traces the emergence of the lithographic industry
in the nineteenth century, examining the workshop setting of the industrial firm the Imprimerie
Lemercier and the division and specialization of labor amongst the many printers employed
26
there. The increasing popularity of chromolithography in the second half of the nineteenth
century surfaced new, specialized roles for color printers. At Lemercier, Clot trained in and
performed the skilled roles of chromiste, the person in charge of separating color and copying
parts of an image onto stones for reproduction, and essayeur, the person responsible for mixing,
printing, and correcting color ink during the trial proof process. Although these roles required
considerable technical and artistic ability, because of the ubiquity of chromolithography in the
public sphere, color lithography remained closely associated with industry and commercial
printing. I analyze Clot’s subsequent reconsolidation of industrial practices into the setting of the
more artisanal and luxury-oriented workshop. When Clot left Lemercier and opened his own
print shop around 1895, the nature of his work changed considerably; he became the shop’s
master and sole printer, responsible for every aspect of the printmaking process, from grinding
stones to preparing trial proofs to printing an entire edition of lithographs. He carried out these
undertakings in a physical setting that also served to distinguish his practice from the industrial
context of Lemercier; his print shop was small and intimate, containing hand presses, rather than
large machine presses, and leaving only enough room for a single printer to work. The chapter
explores how the value of limited edition art prints—a new art form—inheres in the master
printer’s process; his labor and his atelier, I argue, helped to distinguish the art prints from the
commercial prints produced in an industrial setting.
Chapter two explores how the use of color became an important means through which to
create value in the original color lithograph. I consider how color exemplifies the way that art
and industry intersected in print by examining the rather neglected subject of color printing ink, a
crucial material of the color revolution. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the
development of color printing ink played a critical role in the growth of chromolithography as an
27
industry. Firms such as Ch. Lorilleux et Cie produced high quality inks of a wide range of hues;
these products were a vital element in the industrialization of chromolithography because they
increased efficiency and enriched the colors that made chromolithographs appealing to the
public. Color printers trained in commercial printing such as Clot became experts in handling
color ink; he became well versed in the range of products and hues available in stocking his
atelier, skilled at color mixing and matching, and savvy in how inks interacted with paper and
appeared when layered in the printmaking process. Artists experimenting with color in their
painting thus sought out Clot because of his skill with the material of color ink. Unlike in their
painting practice, in lithography, these painters did not control the material that yielded color; it
was the master printer who mixed, rolled, and adjusted color ink. Leveraging his commercial
training and industrial materials, Clot collaborated with artists in the production of color.
Through examination of the working relationship between Clot and artists Paul Signac, Maurice
Denis, and Théo Van Rysselberghe, I illustrate how Clot made initial choices to which artists
reacted and adjusted the print’s palette through in-person discussion or hand-written notes. I
argue that because of Clot’s skill with color, some contemporary critics, such as André Mellerio,
saw his involvement as simultaneously a welcome contribution and a threat to the perceived
originality of these art prints. Clot helped artists achieve their highest potential by collaborating
with them, yet his involvement in color nevertheless continued to tie the prints he pulled to
industry and the commercial setting from which he emerged.
In the third chapter, I explore Clot’s manual reproduction and consider the seemingly
paradoxical central role of reproduction in the development of the original art print. I examine
Clot’s skill and the potential of lithography as a medium suited to translating the textures and
hues of pastel, watercolor, and oil painting. In addition to his skill with color ink and the color
28
printing process, Clot was a gifted draftsman; at Lemercier, working as a chromiste, he skillfully
reproduced extant artworks by hand copying sections onto stones, separating parts of the image
depending on which color would be used to print them. When Clot opened his own atelier, his
main practice focused on the production of original prints by painters. I show that much of his
work at the shop, however, continued to involve the reproduction of other color media into
lithography. Artists often gave him extant artworks or hand-colored maquettes to copy using
lithographic stones and printing ink. Even when artists worked on original compositions, Clot
often assisted them in translating the tones and textures of painting, pastel, or watercolor into
print. In his atelier practice, the printer expertly approximated the artworks he translated; he
never created exact facsimiles. Clot’s skill in translation, I contend, derived from his ability to
distinguish the color lithographs that emerged from his atelier from “chromos,” commercial
reproductive chromolithographs disparaged by fin-de-siècle critics for their numerous, bright,
and crude colors. He employed the appealing aspects of chromolithography but veiled its
association with industry and commercial printing by rendering invisible his labor and
involvement. Because the prints he pulled never replicated their counterparts in painting,
watercolor, or pastel, the color lithographs served as a different, additional version of the artist’s
work. Artists and dealers could thus sell artworks executed in multiple media on various tiers,
making available an artist’s aesthetic portfolio to a wider clientele.
The final chapter explores how the constellation of dealer-publisher, printer, and artist
constructed the material format of the limited edition art print in order to cloak the printer’s
collaboration and ties to commercial printing. In the late nineteenth century, color lithography
remained ubiquitous in the public sphere in commercial prints. In order to enter the market for
fine art, the color lithograph thus required a repackaging through material and rhetorical markers
29
that signified value. I explore the various techniques used by the network behind the production
of art prints, including the arbitrary limiting of an edition size, the canceling of plates, the hand
numbering of prints, and the use of luxury paper. Fine art lithographs also included the artist’s
name—hand signed in graphite beneath the printed image—but omitted any identification of the
printer, deviating from a long history of print praxis in which both designer and printer are
named on a print’s surface. Selecting to employ specific elements from within the tradition of
printmaking while deviating from others, the dealer-publisher, printer, and artist created a
marketing system for the limited edition art print at the turn of the twentieth century. The chapter
contends that master printers in fact contributed to and benefitted from their own erasure. They
often received artist proofs and held onto trial proofs, some annotated or dedicated, later selling
these items at auction and directly to print dealers under the singular name of the artist. Although
the prints they sold reveal the collaborative, multi-authored nature of printmaking, printers
helped to construct a narrative surrounding the artists’ work in lithography, characterizing it as
individual, creative work, a story more appealing within the growing art market. Clot’s ties to
industry nevertheless continued to threaten the artistic status of these prints and so reduced the
visible role of the printer over time.
As a benefit to all those involved, the prints studied here entered the market as original
artworks, linked to individual names that circulated and grew in part due to the greater visibility
and accessibility prints afforded through their mobility and multiplicity. Because of the efforts of
dealer-publishers such as Vollard, the modern art market emerged hand-in-hand with a new
category of art: the limited edition artist print. Although Vollard did not invent the artist print, it
was through his publication efforts and his collaboration with artists, and more importantly, with
the printer Auguste Clot, that the category became an essential part of the modern art market.
30
While scholarship has focused on the significant role of the art dealer in the formation and rise of
the modern art market, I instead consider the essential role of the printer in the emergence of this
commercial system. Printers, as long-standing artisans fundamental to the history of art, proved
essential to the development of the contemporary artist print. In turn, this category helped
circulate and distribute the modern art aesthetic developed by avant-garde artists while
integrating long established artisanal practices to new ends. “Collaboration in Color: Master
Printers, Dealer-Publishers, and Avant-Garde Lithography in Late Nineteenth-Century France”
shows that the modern art market, from its emergence, relied on the graphic arts; the network of
dealer-publisher, printer, and artist created a system through which to control the
commercialization of the singular art object through limited edition prints. Vollard, Clot, and the
many artists who printed with Clot together constructed a system of production that continues to
thrive in the present day. Master printers continue to play a key role in the circulation of
contemporary art through their manual labor, technical expertise, and crucial collaboration
alongside artists in the production of limited edition original art prints; their essential
involvement reveals a fundamental paradox of the art world that relies on the technical and
artistic skill of makers while overlooking or concealing their contribution to maintain the myth of
the singular artist as creator.

31

CHAPTER ONE
The Printer’s Labor: From Commercial Firm to the Atelier

In 1893, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec designed a print featuring the interior of a print shop
for publisher André Marty’s L’Estampe originale. [Figure 1.1] In the foreground, the print
depicts Jane Avril, the famous cabaret dancer who frequently appeared in Lautrec’s posters and
prints. Avril stands cloaked in red and festooned with a black hat, examining a white sheet of
paper, presumably a print just pulled from the press next to her. In the background, Lautrec
portrays the printer, Père Cotelle from the Imprimerie Edward Ancourt, hard at work on the very
edition Avril reviews. The sharp angle of Lautrec’s composition compresses the space of the
print shop, creating a sense that the room could not comfortably accommodate additional people.
Avril hovers near the press, ensconced between the stack of prints and the edge of the paper
depicting her, while Père Cotelle crouches over the press, wedged between the machine and the
window, walls close behind him. Solitary, the bespectacled printer focuses on operating the
machine, passing paper atop the lithographic stone through the press by turning its star wheel by
hand. A bowl of water and a sponge are perched on the side of the press, having just been used
by the printer to wet the limestone before inking. Beneath the press stand two ink rollers,
saturated with black and green ink, which match the black and green hues elsewhere in Lautrec’s
print. Indeed, the content of the print refers to the process of its own making; it was this
lithographer, Père Cotelle, who printed the lithographs for Marty’s album L’Estampe originale,
32
including one hundred copies of Lautrec’s limited edition print.
37
Lautrec’s depiction associates
“l’estampe originale,” or original print—in this case the limited edition original color
lithograph—with the artisanal work of the master printer and the intimate space of his workshop.
This chapter explores the development of the print shop and the kinds of labor printers
performed by looking at the emergence of the lithographic industry in the nineteenth century and
the master printer’s subsequent reconsolidation of industrial practices within the more artisanal
and luxury, art-oriented workshop. Lithography grew rapidly into an industry over the course of
the nineteenth century in France, and firms such as the Imprimerie Edward Ancourt and the even
larger Imprimerie Lemercier became associated in the trade with large-scale commercial
printing. Labor within these firms was divided into unskilled and skilled work; the growing
popularity of chromolithography in the second half of the nineteenth century created new and
specialized roles for color printers. Cotelle and other printers, including Édouard Duchatel,
Henry Stern, and Auguste Clot, became known for their work with avant-garde artists in the
production of original color lithographs. They trained and practiced in these industrial settings,
which had special departments for what were considered more artistic color posters and art
prints. Unlike some of these printers and earlier than others, however, Clot left Lemercier to
establish his own firm, which he opened around 1895.
38
Clot’s workshop printed only limited

37
In La Lithographie originale en couleurs (Paris: L’Estampe et l’affiche, 1898), critic André Mellerio
credits Père Cotelle with the printing of L’Estampe originale. Mellerio also refers directly to this print in
his section on Lautrec. See André Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, trans. Margaret Needham, in
The Color Revolution: Color Lithography in France, 1890-1900, eds. Phillip Dennis Cate and Sinclair
Hamilton Hitchings (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University press, 1978), 79-97. Further details about
L’Estampe originale can be found in Ruth E. Iskin, The Poster: Art, Advertising, Design, and Collecting,
1860s–1900s (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2014), 134. The album was published from 1893
to 1895 and included 95 prints in nine installments, each print was one of a 100 copies.
38
Clot opened his atelier on the Rue de Cherche-Midi in either 1895 or 1896. See Pat Gilmour, “Cher
Monsieur Clot…Auguste Clot and his Role as a Colour Lithographer” in Lasting Impressions:
Lithography as an Art, Pat Gilmour, ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1988), 131.
33
edition art lithographs, in contrast with Lemercier, which produced a wide range of lithographic
materials, from reproductions of artworks to labels and advertisements. As his workshop’s
founder, Clot was its master printer, but he was also the only printer, responsible for each step of
the labor intensive and complex printing process to complete projects with the many artists who
flocked to his atelier. By tracing and analyzing the connections and distinctions between the
specialized labor of industrial production in large lithographic firms and Clot’s reconsolidation
of labor in the small-scale, artisanal practice of his workshop, this chapter argues that, in late
nineteenth-century France, the printer’s labor and space of production contributed to the creation
of a new category of art: the limited edition original color lithograph.

Early Lithographic Printing in France
Soon after its invention in the late eighteenth century, lithography attracted a wide range
of practitioners in Europe because of its ease, immediacy, and efficiency. Based on the principle
that water and oil resist one another, lithography is a chemical process that involves a thick
limestone block onto which an image is drawn directly with an oil crayon. The printer then uses
a chemical solution to treat the surface so that the oil-based image attracts ink while the blank
areas repel ink but attract water. The oil-based crayon-drawn image is then fixed with a solvent,
and the printer sponges water over the rest of the stone. When an oil-based ink is then rolled over
the surface, it attaches only to the crayon image and not the blank spaces. The prepared stone is
then transferred to the printing press where it is installed and covered with paper, board, and a
bar to maintain an even pressure before it passes through the press.
The first adopters of lithography in France established ateliers in Paris in the 1810s; in its
nascent years, lithographic production remained small scale and experimental, competing with
34
relief and intaglio printmaking.
39
Artists and printmakers did not need to spend time laboriously
carving or etching the stone, but could instead draw freely on the surface, or matrix, as if
drawing on a piece of paper. The simplicity and ease of lithography immediately intrigued Salon
painters in the early nineteenth century, as chronicled by art historian Stephen Bann.
40
Visiting
the small lithographic print shops in Paris, most notably that of Godefroy Engelmann, Salon
painters such as Antoine Gros, Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, and Carle and Horace Vernet
experimented in monochrome lithography, exhibiting their lithographs at the Salon as early as
1817.
41
Some artists, such as Anne-Louis Girodet, reproduced their own paintings through
lithography, whereas other artists, such as Eugène Delacroix, considered lithography to be an
experimental form of drawing and used the medium to produce original compositions. In these
early years, however, the Academy continued to value engraving above lithography. Because of
the labor intensive and highly skilled process of burin engraving, the Academy considered
reproductive engravings as superior to reproductive and original lithographs.
42

Outside of the Salon, lithography also immediately appealed to printers and publishers
because of its potential for generating large edition sizes. Since the image was inscribed on the
stone’s surface, as long as the stone was continuously re-inked between printings, the surface

39
The first two lithographic print shops in Paris were established in 1816 by Charles de Lasteyrie and
Godefroy Engelmann. See Stephen Bann, Parallel Lines: Printmakers, Painters, and Photographers in
Nineteenth-Century France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 61.
40
See Bann, Parallel Lines and Stephen Bann, Distinguished Images: Prints and the Visual Economy in
Nineteenth-Century France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013).
41
For more about lithographs in the Salon see Bann, Parallel Lines, 66.
42
By 1831, lithography had its own section in the Salon, but despite the considerable skill of Salon
painters evident in their lithographic art prints, the rigid academic system in which they operated
continued to value engravings above lithographs as artistic prints. See Bann, Parallel Lines, 66. See also
Patricia Mainardi, Another World: Nineteenth-Century Illustrated Print Culture (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2017), 14-21. Furthermore, all of the early experimentation in lithography by painters
was in monochrome. Printers wished to attract painters to the medium, in which the latter could work
easily and directly on the stone; color would have required the artist to separate their drawings based on
color, a difficult task that likely would have made the process less appealing. See Michael Twyman, A
History of Chromolithography: Printed Colour for All (London: British Library, 2013), 28.
35
would not degrade or break as was common in woodcut, engraving, and etching.
43
A lithographic
stone could thus produce seemingly endless impressions. Lithography was therefore widely
employed to reproduce documents and images quickly and efficiently, making the medium a
popular choice for printing illustrations in journals and books. As art historian Nicholas Green
notes, in the 1820s, printer-publishers in Paris capitalized on the new medium by commissioning
artists to travel and draw landscapes to be reproduced via lithography in travel prints and books,
known as voyages pittoresques.
44
Additionally, as art historian Patricia Mainardi explains,
lithography’s association with spontaneity made it a particularly suitable medium for political
satire and caricature; it was the preferred printmaking process for satirical artists Honoré
Daumier and Paul Gavarni in the 1830s and 40s.
45

During the first half of the nineteenth century, lithography was also used for printing other
types of images for the public sphere, including posters, labels, and advertisements, which
required large print runs. From its invention, therefore, lithography oscillated between art and
industry. As it became more popular and more widely used, print shops also expanded. Critics,
publishers, artists, and the public recognized the medium’s rapid proliferation, cementing the
association of lithography with commercial print production in large-scale firms, in Paris most
notably the Imprimerie Lemercier.

43
In relief printing, the matrix is either wood or linoleum. In the intaglio processes of engraving and
etching, the matrix is a metal plate.
44
See Nicholas Green, “Consuming the Picturesque,” in The Spectacle of Nature: Landscape and
Bourgeois Culture in Nineteenth-Century France (Manchester and New York: Manchester University
Press, 1990), 95-126. Also see Allan Doyle, “The Medium is the Messagerie,” Representations 145, no.1
(Winter 2019): 107–128.
45
See Mainardi, “Drawing’s Stepchild: Lithography and Caricature,” in Another World, 13-71.
36
The Industrial Workshop of the Imprimerie Lemercier
Intérieur de l’imprimerie lithographique de Lemercier, Charles Villemin’s lithograph
after Victor Adam’s design, conveys the vast scale of production and the division of labor at the
Imprimerie Lemercier in the mid-nineteenth century. [Figure 1.2] Beneath high glass ceilings,
printers operate around thirty presses while teams of other printers copy images, ink stones,
prepare paper, and fetch stones from the shelves where they are stored on either side of the room
and on the level above. In a meeting space on the second level, formally dressed clients
converse, review their commissions, and inspect a stone. Rose-Joseph Lemercier, in conversation
with a client, stands at the center of the firm he founded in 1828.
46
Paintings hang on the walls
on either side of Lemercier and his clients, perhaps to be reproduced in the firm’s ateliers
artistiques. On the first and second levels, the many stones stored along the walls are numbered,
their surfaces preserving advertisements, labels, calendars, and various images ready to be
reprinted at a client’s request. The printers’ work is fluid and bustling within the open space of
the workshop. Located on the Rue de Seine in Paris and flooded with natural light, the print shop
resembles other commercial spaces built with iron and glass in the city in the nineteenth century
and designed for circulation and consumption, including the Gare de l’Est train station (1847-
1852), Les Halles market (1853-74), and later the Bon Marché department store (1876).
47

46
The company’s first location was on the Rue Four-St-Germain. The space quickly became too small to
accommodate the rapidly growing firm, however, and it relocated to the Rue de Seine in the 1830s. For a
description of the first space on the Rue Four-St-Germain, see Alfred Lemercier, La Lithographie
française de 1796 à 1896 et les arts qui s’y rattachent. Manuel pratique s’adressant aux artistes et aux
imprimeurs (Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie, 1899), xxii.
47
The Imprimerie Lemercier, however, was not in fact housed in a building constructed specifically for
printing; rather, the print shop was located in a space formerly used for jeu de paume—real or royal
tennis—and repurposed by Lemercier in the mid 1830s. The building—constructed to optimize natural
light and designed for spectatorship and movement in its former use as a tennis court—was then
repurposed to carry out the production of a new form of printing. For more on iron and glass structures,
see Paul Chemetov and Bernard Marrey, Architectures à Paris: 1848-1914 (Paris: Dunod, 1980); Brian
R. Jacobson, “Georges Méliès’s ‘Glass House’,” in Studios Before the System: Architecture, Technology,
37
The depiction’s emphasis on light, movement, and spectatorship highlights the features of
the Imprimerie Lemercier, the largest lithographic firm in Paris by mid-century. Over its long
existence, Lemercier developed many important innovations in lithographic and
photomechanical printing processes, including the technique of lavis lithographique used to print
tinted lithographs, as well as a hybrid process that combined lithography and photography called
lithophotographie. The firm also manufactured lithographic crayons—black, greasy crayons
used for drawing directly on the lithographic stone—thus entering into the market for
lithographic materials. Lemercier primarily produced commercial prints and advertising
materials, such as labels and trade cards, but the firm also had ateliers artistiques that produced
art prints, including both fine art reproductions and original art prints.

Indeed, as art historian
Jeffrey Rosen notes in his extensive study on the history of Lemercier, the firm’s diversification
in production played a large role in the transformation of lithography into an industry in
France.
48
It diversified its output while other firms remained specialized; by expanding its
production of both art and commercial lithographs as well as lithographic materials, Lemercier
contributed to the medium’s growth into an industrial art.
Those involved in industry, including the political scientists and economists of the
Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale, recognized the industrialization of
lithography as early as the late 1810s.
49
In an 1819 manual on lithography, printer Antoine
Raucourt writes:

and the Emergence of Cinematic Space (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 55-86; Bertrand
Lemoine, Architecture in France 1800-1900 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998); François Loyer,
Histoire de l’architecture française de la Révolution à nos jours (Paris: Mengès, Editions du Patrimoine,
1999); David Van Zanten, Building Paris: Architectural Institutions and the Transformation of the
French Capital, 1830-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
48
Jeffrey Rosen, “Lemercier et Compagnie: Photolithography and the Industrialization of Print
Production in France, 1837-1859” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1988).
49
Ibid., 57.
38
There is every reason to hope that France, the country which has always cultivated the
fine arts with the greatest success, will also be the one in which lithography will attain the
summit of perfection; and that this highly useful art will increase the produce of our
industry, multiply the masterpieces of our artists, and render the rest of the world our
tributary.
50

In its first decades, then, French lithographers could already imagine the growth and success of
lithography for the purpose of multiplying artworks and distributing them around the globe. The
lithograph featuring Lemercier’s firm illustrates the transition from artisanal-based production—
mentioned by Raucourt as possessing a rich potential for growth—into an industrial art, seen
here to contribute to the large-scale production and thus wider circulation of printed material in
the public sphere. The hierarchy visible within the firm, however, mirrors older labor structures,
creating a cultural hierarchy within a new industrial system intended to democratize and level
culture through mass production. Printers are clearly divided in the space based on the role that
each performs. Their labor is divided into skilled and unskilled work; indeed, skilled, artisanal
printers who did specialized labor were paid and valued more than their colleagues performing
unskilled work.

The Division of Labor at Lemercier
Lemercier was the largest and most successful lithographic firm, distinguishing itself
because of its size, production output, and the number of workers employed. Lemercier was
exceptional; while most firms of this period were solely operated or run by a master printer
overseeing fewer than ten printers, by 1849 Lemercier employed 120 workers.
51
As Lemercier

50
Antoine Raucourt, A Manual of Lithography, or Memoir on the Lithographical Experiments made in
Paris, at the Royal School of the Roads and Bridges; clearly explaining the whole art, as well as all the
accidents that may happen in printing, and the different methods of avoiding them, trans. C. Hullmandel
(London: Rodwell and Martin, 1821), 138.
51
Rosen, “Lemercier et Compagnie,” 101.
39
grew and diversified its output, the firm’s master printers further divided labor into various
specialized roles to expedite and streamline the printing process.
In 1899 Alfred Lemercier, the nephew and business partner of the firm’s founder, wrote
an extensive manual and treatise on lithography, perhaps in an attempt to ensure the firm’s
legacy was interwoven with the history of lithography.
52
His manual offers insight into the firm’s
many specialized roles. Some workers were responsible for the preparation of the stones. Other
jobs centered on the printing of large edition sizes, which were typically printed on machine
presses operated by a printer and overseen by a conducteur, a manager or foreman who was in
charge of solving any problems that surfaced during printing.
53
Whereas these jobs were
necessary for the printing of any lithograph, others were reserved for the printing of large
editions of commercial prints. For the printing of a label, for instance, the firm used a master
stone, or maitrise, which was a stone numbered and stored at a firm like Lemercier until the next
printing was required for a label. In these cases, the job fell to a reporteur to copy the image
from the master stone multiple times onto a much larger stone from which dozens of impressions
could be pulled simultaneously.
54
Depending on the number of colors, the process might be
repeated several times for the different parts of the label; this process was complex and required
technical expertise. Other jobs were specific to color printing, including that of the chromiste,
responsible for color separation, and the essayeur, the printer who mixed and applied color and
performed the trial proof process.
55
The division resulted in a hierarchy of workers within the
firm, with skilled and specialized printers at the top and unskilled, manual laborers at the bottom,

52
Alfred Lemercier, La Lithographie française de 1796 à 1896 et les arts qui s’y rattachent. Manuel
pratique s’adressant aux artistes et aux imprimeurs (Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie, 1899).
53
Ibid., 155.
54
Ibid., 154.
55
Ibid., 173-176.
40
and all overseen by master printers.
56
Some of the skilled tasks required expertise but not artistic
skill or creativity, whereas other skilled positions required extensive training and considerable
artistic ability.
Wages for workers in a lithographic firm depended on their role and place within the
hierarchy. Stone grinders, considered manual laborers, earned considerably less than printers,
draftsmen, and designers, who also earned wages along a wide range.
57
The projects printers
worked on also determined their status and wages; those working on images earned more than
those printing texts. The distinction between unskilled and skilled labor was compounded by the
addition of large printing machines in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Unskilled workers
who were often not trained in the entire process of lithographic printing operated these machines.
In addition to a hierarchy amongst workers, the separation between master printers and workers
employed in a large-scale print shop such as Lemercier was stark and often tense.
58
Master
printers aimed to manage and control the workforce of their shops to ensure efficient production
of high-quality prints. They largely considered workers as part of an increasingly mechanized
process and would frequently attempt to replace skilled workers with machines.
59

In nineteenth-century France, industrialization impacted workers differently within the
hierarchy of labor.
60
Labor historians have addressed the effect of industrialization in particular

56
No matter their position within the hierarchy, printers at Lemercier were always called ouvriers. Even
the most skilled workers were referred to as habile ouvriers, or capable workers.
57
Rosen states that in the 1840s, stone grinders earned an average of 2 francs per day whereas printers,
draftsmen, and designers earned between 5 and 35 francs per day. Rosen, “Lemercier et Compagnie,”
184.
58
Ibid.,115.
59
Ibid., 35.
60
In nineteenth-century France, the lives of workers spanned a large spectrum; the experiences of skilled
workers differed dramatically from those of unskilled workers in new factory settings across all
industries. Skilled workers, or artisans, completed apprenticeships and training in a specific craft.
Possessing specialized skills and thus a status of respectability, artisans typically worked in smaller-scale
workshops, with the intention of eventually establishing their own business. While they worked hard, they
41
on skilled artisans and the space of the craft workshop within the history of labor and labor
movements.
61
Scholars such as Joan Wallach Scott and Leora Auslander note that large-scale
industrialization engendered anxiety amongst artisans who feared the loss of control over their
craft traditions that had been cultivated and maintained for years and, in some cases, for
centuries. More recent studies, however, have complicated and revised this understanding of the
relationship between industry and craftwork, offering a more nuanced reading that is key to the
analysis of the labor hierarchy within lithography. Craft historian Glenn Adamson contends that
industrialization in fact changed the perception of artisanal work and increased the value of the
craftsman’s labor. In The Invention of Craft, Adamson argues that although artisanal work has
long existed, the idea of “craft” emerged during the eighteenth and nineteenth century in
opposition to “industry.”
62
Only when machines produced objects did the handmade object
emerge as distinct. Adamson challenges the typical understanding of craft during the industrial
revolution as one of “decline followed by renewal.”
63
Machines made the work of artisans
obsolete, which led to a decline in the workers’ experience and the quality of the products they

could afford to eat and save money. On the other end of the spectrum were workers in large factories. In
contrast to artisans, these workers did not have sufficient skills to exercise bargaining power with their
employers and had more trouble paying rent and getting food on the table. For more on this topic, see
Charles Sowerwine, France Since 1870: Culture, Politics and Society (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 9.
61
See William H. Sewell, Work & Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to
1848 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980); Joan Wallach Scott, The Glassworkers of
Carmaux: French Craftsmen and Political Action in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1974); and Leora Auslander, Taste and Power: Furnishing Modern France
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). Scott examines the experiences of highly skilled
glassworkers producing glass wine bottles who went on strike and unionized in order to maintain and
protect their status as craftsmen after the introduction of new machinery in the 1880s. Failing to stop the
“process of proletarianization,” the craftsmen left the craft rather than join the factory and work in a
semiskilled trade. Auslander builds on labor histories from the 1970s and 1980s, noting that labor
historians of that period focused primarily on workers’ experiences as related to wages, working hours,
and their relationship to the labor process. Auslander instead investigates the relationship between artisan
furniture makers and the objects that they made, not just the labor process, and how these artisans
performed an “aesthetic resistance” to the alienation of labor that emerged from industrialization.
62
Glenn Adamson, The Invention of Craft (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), xii.
63
Ibid., xv.
42
made. Figures such as John Ruskin and later William Morris considered craft as a renewal, a
“reclamation project.”
64
Adamson claims that critics saw craft as a “corrective,” never
contributing to modernization, but always considered an “antidote to modernity.”
65
Adamson
notes, however, several aspects that these critics overlooked, including the fact that more artisans
existed in Europe in 1850 than in the century prior, and that their status as skilled workers
contributed to the division of labor in the workforce. Trained and skilled workers thus became a
“labor aristocracy.”
66
Furthermore, although industrialized workshops involved machines,
production typically combined hand and machine work. The workshop’s division of labor did not
result in deskilling, but rather in a shift in which artisans rose to the top of the hierarchy to
perform the most specialized work.

The “labor aristocracy” described by Adamson existed in the world of lithographic
printing at Lemercier. In 1851, seeking to rebalance relations between workers and
management—including the master printer—Lemercier and the firm's printers negotiated a new
labor agreement.
67
Lemercier gave in to requests regarding wages while the workers agreed to
good behavior. Notably, in this agreement, skilled workers distinguished themselves as artisans,
elevating their work above that of their colleagues who were unskilled workers. These skilled
workers held onto more traditional values associated with technical skill and craft and agreed to
a hierarchical structure in the workshop in which they were paid more for their work.
68
Indeed,
Lemercier’s skilled workers accepted the division of labor in the workshop, seeing it as a
continuation of the divisions inherent in the hierarchical guild system of apprentice, journeyman,

64
Ibid., xv.
65
Ibid.,, xv.
66
Ibid., xvi.
67
Rosen, “Lemercier et Compagnie,” 203.
68
Ibid., 205. This distinction was reflected monetarily when Lemercier raised the wages for workers in
1851 from 5 to 15 francs for printers and 3 to 4 francs for manual workers. Ibid., 211.
43
and master that had been officially abolished during the French Revolution. Skilled workers thus
embraced this new economic structure in the workshop as a means to reinstate preindustrial
relationships between workers and the means of production.
69
In the industrialized workshop of
Lemercier, the coexistence of artisanal work with industrial production persisted.

Printers of Chromolithography
The roles of chromiste and essayeur indicate the recognition, and even expectation, that
some roles within the industrial printing process required artistic skill and creativity. The work
performed by these color printers was rooted in preindustrial printmaking and early
experimentation in color lithography from the first decades of the nineteenth century. Specific
roles for color lithographers emerged, however, in the second half of the nineteenth century in
the context of industrial production and in response to the growing demand for and production of
chromolithography in France. The majority of lithographs printed in the early nineteenth century
were monochrome, although color printing was possible; because lithography was primarily
employed for quick and cheap reproduction, the addition of color would have overly complicated
the process and rendered it significantly more expensive.
70
Any lithographs with color from this
period were produced through hand coloring or tinted lithography.
71
Hand-colored lithographs
continued a long tradition of hand coloring in the history of print, including hand-colored relief
and intaglio prints.
72
Lithographers printed images that could either be left black and white or

69
Ibid., 206.
70
Twyman, A History of Chromolithography, 28.
71
See Twyman, chapters 1.2 “First Steps in or towards chromolithography” and 1.3 “Tinted Lithography”
in A History of Chromolithography, 25-40 and 41-62.
72
Hand coloring of engraving, etchings, and woodcuts was ubiquitous in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the
early seventeenth centuries; indeed, the majority of extant prints from the fifteenth century are hand
painted. See Susan Dackerman, Painted Prints: The Revelation of Color in Northern Renaissance &
Baroque Engravings, Etchings & Woodcuts (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2002).
44
colored by hand. The application of color was either divided by color among assistants, or if
quality was of particular concern, one person would apply all of the colors. For larger edition
sizes, printers might have used stencils to expedite the process, though this technique sometimes
made the quality noticeably poorer. In general, hand coloring was typically inconsistent, and
such application became less practical the larger the edition size.
73
The practice of hand coloring
remained in use for several decades, however, until the mechanization of printing rendered the
process too inefficient. Tinted lithography also drew on earlier forms of printmaking; in this case
the process of producing a tinted lithograph resembled early modern chiaroscuro woodcuts.
74

Tinting lithographs involved first the printing of a black foundation stone, which held the outline
of the image, followed by a second stone prepared with a semi-transparent ink wash. Tinted
lithographs, which were used for the reproduction of artworks, landscapes, and topographical
maps, sometimes consisted of multiple tinted stones, making them almost indistinguishable from
early chromolithographs.
75
Indeed, many technical aspects of chromolithography were adapted
from tinted lithography. Tinted lithographs required plate registration that would later be
developed and used for chromolithography. Furthermore, the division of labor in
chromolithography emerged from tinted lithography for which multiple printers worked on the
preparation of a single print.
76
In their forays into color printing, early lithographers thus began
to address some of the elements that would be necessary in chromolithography.

73
For more on hand coloring, see Twyman, A History of Chromolithography, 68-69.
74
In the early modern period, color was also sometimes incorporated in the preparation of color washed
paper, as in chiaroscuro prints. See Naoko Takahatake, ed., The Chiaroscuro Woodcut in Renaissance
Italy (Los Angeles, New York, and Munich: Los Angeles County Museum of Art in association with
DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2018).
75
Twyman, A History of Chromolithography, 43 and 57.
76
Ibid., 53.
45
For the successful development of chromolithography, certain technical conditions had to
be met, including the production of color inks and streamlined processes for color separation and
color registration.
77
Drawing on the eighteenth-century practice of color intaglio printing, early
lithographers experimented with techniques for printing multiple colors, either through the
application of multiple colors onto one stone or through the separation of an image onto multiple
stones.
78
Printers developed this last technique of multiple stone printing for chromolithography.
The process required a consistent method for color registration—aligning the various colors on
the printed paper—similar to that which was explored in tinted lithography. They finally
achieved that consistency in 1837 with the development of French lithographer Godefroy
Engelmann’s frame, which made color registration much easier; it was Engelmann, in fact, who
called this form of printing chromolithography.
79
The process, however, remained labor intensive
and expensive, so publishers typically reserved it for the reproduction of fine art.
Mechanization in the 1860s and 1870s made chromolithographs faster and cheaper to
produce, and by the fin de siècle, chromolithography—and the work of color printers—was
firmly associated with commercial and mass production. Over the course of the nineteenth
century, Lemercier developed and employed machinery that cut costs and reduced labor,
enabling large-scale production using new methods of printing, including chromolithography.
80

77
Ibid., 25.
78
In the eighteenth century, printers developed techniques, such as mezzotint, for printing color through
intaglio processes. Mezzotint involves printing from a burnished copper plate to create soft and richly
contrasting tones. Some printers added multiple ink colors to the same metal plate through a technique
called “à la poupée.” In the 1720s, Jakob Christoffel Le Bon created a process of printing mezzotints from
multiple color plates. Le Bon drew from Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of color, printing red, yellow, and blue
mezzotint plates to produce an image with a full range of color. See Judith C. Walsh, “Ink and
Inspiration: The Craft of Color Printing,” in Colorful Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in
Eighteenth-Century France, ed. Margaret Morgan Grasselli (Washington, D.C: National Gallery of Art,
2003): 23-33.
79
Twyman, A History of Chromolithography, 99-101.
80
Rosen, “Lemercier et Compagnie,” 123.
46
Steam-powered machines became widespread in the second half of the nineteenth century, and
most chromolithographs circulating in the public sphere—including mass-produced trade cards,
posters, calendars, and labels—were printed using steam-powered machine presses and with
inexpensive materials.
81
Similar presses were in operation elsewhere in Paris, and their scale is
evident in a photograph from around 1893 of the Imprimerie Paul Dupont. [Figure 1.3] The large
machines in use at the Imprimerie Paul Dupont were manned by teams of printers—some stand
on the machine in order to operate it—illustrating a form of production that starkly contrasts
Lautrec’s depiction of Père Cotelle at work alone at a hand press. [Figure 1.1] In the 1890s, the
Imprimerie Chaix—the large commercial and industrial print firm that Jules Chéret joined in the
1880s as artistic director of posters—owned ninety-two steam-powered presses, which printed
lithography as well as typography.
82
By 1882, Lemercier had fifteen machine presses specifically
for chromolithography; each machine press could produce the work of twenty hand presses.
83

Hand presses did remain in operation at Lemercier, but they were reserved for trial proofing and
printing smaller editions of art reproductions and original art prints.
84
As the majority of
chromolithographs were printed on steam presses, however, the printing process remained
associated with these machines.

81
See “Chromolithography: Posters, Trade Cards, and the Politics of Ephemera Collecting in Fin-de-
Siècle France” in Laura Anne Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce, Technology, and Art
(University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2017), 149-181.
82
For more on the Imprimerie Chaix, see Iskin, The Poster, 149-151.
83
"Deposition de M. Lemercier,” in Commission d'enquête sur la situation des ouvriers et des industries
d'art (Paris: A. Quantin, 1884), 179.
84
For a more detailed analysis of the hand versus mechanical press, see Twyman, A History of
Chromolithography, 186. Rosen notes that in 1844 Lemercier employed 100 printers and owned thirty
presses that produced both artistic and commercial lithographs. Pat Gilmour writes that “the vast
Lemercier establishment was equipped with 70 presses for crayon work, 20 for tinted lithography, 30 for
chromolithography, and 12 for ‘gravure sur pierre’ (lithography in the engraved manner).” See Gilmour,
“Cher Monsieur Clot,” 131.
47
These new methods created new and specialized roles for printers working with color.
Color printers were chiefly responsible for two important aspects of chromolithography: color
separation and color registration. Chromistes, typically gifted draftsmen, performed color
separation, which involved the inspection of an image meant to be reproduced or printed and the
determination of how many colors were required to print the image.
85
This step also included the
transfer by hand of the different parts of the image onto different stones that would be inked with
the color of that section. For example, the chromiste would copy—either by hand or with a faux
décalque—the segment meant to be printed in yellow in a black crayon onto a stone that would
later be inked with yellow ink. They would repeat this process to prepare different stones, which
could range from a few to nearly thirty for a single image. Chromistes performed this task by
looking at the image to be reproduced, demonstrating considerable skill in drawing as well as an
understanding of how the colors would eventually mix to create new colors when printed in
layers on paper.
Once all the necessary stones were prepared by the chromiste, they would become the
responsibility of the essayeur, or trial proof printer. Lemercier’s 1899 manual features an image
of an essayeur at work, reviewing a proof of a lithograph pulled from a hand press, accompanied
by clients and aided by an assistant rolling up ink. [Figure 1.4] Trial proofs are studies that show
the color, layering, and registration of a print at any given moment in the printing process. The
essayeur would select the inks, mix the desired colors to match those in the original painting or
drawing, and in some cases, decide upon the order in which the stones would be printed.
86
This
final step was key in determining how the color would layer on the surface of the paper to

85
Lemercier, La Lithographie française, 151-152.
86
Ibid., 147-148. See also Édouard Duchatel, Traité de Lithographie Artistique (Paris: É. Duchatel,
1893).
48
achieve the final effect. A chief responsibility of the essayeur was color registration, which was
the difficult task of ensuring that the colors lined up correctly during printing. In order to achieve
the effect of two or more colors overlapping to create new tones, shades, or colors, the paper
needed to line up with the image during each printing. It is typical to see small “+” marks on a
print, indicating how the printer aligned the paper during printing. Trial proofs frequently
signaled any necessary adjustments in color ink or registration. Clients or artists whose work was
being printed or reproduced would often participate in the process of printing trial proofs. In the
image of the trial proof process in Lemercier’s manual, a client, the man wearing a hat, examines
the print and perhaps requests changes to various aspects of the image before approving the final
version. Once the essayeur completed the trial proof process, he prepared a proof to serve as a
model to be followed for the remaining prints in an edition. Depending on the edition size, the
printing would be taken up by another printer, such as the conducteur, who would oversee its
printing on a machine press.
Although Lemercier’s chromistes and essayeurs were valued for their creative and artistic
contributions, their artisanal work was nevertheless understood within the trade and by the public
through the context of the industrialized workshop. An advertisement published by Lemercier to
promote the firm’s work in chromolithography showcases the craft of color printers. [Figure 1.5]
The two-page spread appeared in a special 1895 edition of Le Figaro printed entirely by
Lemercier and devoted to celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of the invention of
lithography. Through image and text, the advertisement explains the chromolithographic printing
process behind the production of a trade card for a liquor distillery called Feuillantine,
illustrating the complex process and considerable artistic skill required for color separation,
progression, and registration. The printers drew the segments of the image by hand on ten
49
different stones, and the fan of color progression proofs reveals the process of layering the stones
inked in peach, light yellow, brown, and blue, as well as the ways in which these colors mix on
the paper to create new hues. The greater the number of colors, the more difficult the process of
separating them onto stones and the subsequent registration. Although requiring technical and
artistic skill, chromolithography remained associated with the type of print featured here, a
commercial trade card. The six different versions of the Feuillantine trade cards situate this
process within the context of mass production.
The process of color separation and registration developed for commercial
chromolithography was nearly identical to that used to produce artistic posters and original art
prints, although both typically included fewer colors than chromos. The visual rhetoric of
printing also differs in the industrial and artisanal workshop settings. The process of production
referenced in the Feuillantine advertisement can be juxtaposed to the printing performed by Père
Cotelle in Lautrec’s depiction of a print shop interior. [Figure 1.1] The ad itself appeared in Le
Figaro, a journal in mass circulation at 3.50 francs an issue, although for this issue a special
edition of 25 copies were printed on the finer and more delicate Japan paper for 100 francs each.
Lautrec’s 1893 print was a limited edition of only one hundred copies, intended for circulation to
clients through subscription. Their intended means of circulation perhaps had an impact on the
way that the process of color separation is presented in each. The Feuillantine ad clearly explains
and visually breaks down the process for the viewer. By contrast, in Lautrec’s print, Père Cotelle
is executing a nearly identical process, but the visual spectacle is reserved for a singular
collector, one who is seemingly offered a glimpse behind the scenes of production. Furthermore,
Lautrec’s more avant-garde depiction—the use of few colors to convey a cropped, compressed,
and flattened space—only alludes to Père Cotelle’s process of color separation, with references
50
in the form of ink rollers and the press itself; the process here appears to be more subtle, artistic,
and subjective, requiring the artistic skills of a printer that cannot be easily communicated
through a diagram in an advertisement. The association of Père Cotelle’s work with that of an
artist is reinforced by a comparison to the image of lithographic printing from 1893 at the
Imprimerie Paul Dupont. [Figure 1.3] Cotelle works alone in a concentrated, focused state,
whereas the team of printers at the Imprimerie Dupont are each positioned at different areas of
the large, machine-powered press, in charge of distinct roles within this divided labor process. In
Lautrec’s lithograph, the role of master printer and his means of production are celebrated in this
colorful portrayal, displaying Cotelle’s final results on its surface; the black-and-white image of
the Imprimerie Paul Dupont, by contrast, served as an illustration in Maurice Vachon’s 1894 Les
Arts et les industries du papier en France, and offered access to organization and acts of labor
without hint to the final project. The latter appears to associate lithographic printing with
industrialized production, although it is likely that a printer performed Père Cotelle’s role at
some point in the printing process.

Declining Quality and Training at Lemercier
Contemporary critics identified the type of press used as a key factor in distinguishing a
commercial print, produced in large batches on a steam press, from an art print, typically printed
in smaller quantities on a hand press. In his 1895 La Lithographie, print historian Henri Bouchot
differentiates commercial and art lithographs based on the materials and the process of its
production. He compares prints pulled on a machine to those pulled on a hand press by a skilled
printer who gives all of his care and precise attention to the printing.
87
Indeed, the hand press

87
Henri Bouchot, La Lithographie (Paris: Librairies-Imprimeries Réunies, 1895), 294.
51
required that the printer work particularly carefully during the printing process, monitoring the
progress while operating the press by hand with a large wheel that moved the platform slowly
under the roller. The use of a hand press also meant that the production time was significantly
longer than printing with a machine press. Overall, the precision and time required to work a
hand press contributed to the higher material and aesthetic quality of the printing and the
perceived elevated status of such prints. In his 1899 manual, Alfred Lemercier himself notes the
higher quality of prints pulled on a hand press, writing of the serious printer’s displeasure at
using the steam-powered press in order to keep costs down rather than the hand press which
would deliver a higher quality print.
88

The widespread use of machines at Lemercier also meant that workers did not undergo
the same rigorous training as in earlier decades, and thus were less familiar with the intricacies of
the entire printing process because of the specialization of roles. In an 1882 statement to the
Ministère de l’Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts on the situation of workers in the industrial
arts, the then-elderly Rose-Joseph Lemercier described the future of young workers in his firm.
Assistants tasked with retrieving paper in the press would eventually become conducteurs,
overseeing their own machine presses. While Lemercier remarks positively on the large number
of chromolithographs produced in his firm, he nevertheless seems to regret some changes
brought about by large presses, noting that young workers will ascend the ranks, “without ever
having learned lithography. It is not as it used to be when we printed with hand presses; it almost
meant that the worker had the feeling of art, of harmony to put in his drawing; today the machine
is situated to do all this work.”
89
Lemercier essentially describes how industrialization and the
introduction of machines eventually deskilled printers, keeping them from learning and

88
Lemercier, La Lithographie française, 175-177.
89
"Deposition de M. Lemercier,” 179. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
52
perfecting the intricacies of the craft. Unless they used hand presses, and thus acquired an
understanding of each step of the process, printers could not develop their artistic capabilities in
the medium.
Indeed, elsewhere in his statement, Lemercier conveys his concerns about the overall
decline in artisanal and artistic skill of printers and the subsequent decline in the quality of prints
emerging from the workshop. Echoing Bouchot’s comment about the need for printers who give
all their care, Lemercier laments the decline in quality:
Our industry has almost entirely lost its artistic aspect; we only have a few artists who
remain capable of making art objects…Lithography is unfortunate in that it is very
fragile, that is to say, that it requires great care. It takes workers who are absolutely first
rate to print a subject worthy of framing, with its value of tones. These workers must
almost be painters; if they do not have the feeling of color, they do not see what they are
doing.
90

According to Lemercier, the potential for high quality lithographs relies on the skill and artistic
ability of printers, who must possess a painter’s sensibility in regard to color. Lemercier thus
acknowledges the craft and artistic skill of lithographic printers, even as he perceives a decline in
these skills in the setting of his firm.
91
The demands of industry—the division of labor, the large
scale of production, the use of mechanical presses, and the overall association with the space of
an industrial workshop—threatened to obscure printers’ artisanal skills.
Additionally, Lemercier’s firm had contributed significantly to the development of new,
hybrid forms of lithographic printing such as lithophotographie, which combined lithography
and photography. These hybrid processes often diverged from traditional forms of lithography in

90
Ibid., 177-178.
91
Others shared his concerns for the state of lithography. In the preface to the 1893 publication Traité de
lithographie artistique, curator and critic Léonce Bénédite addresses the author, Édouard Duchatel, who
was a printer of art lithographs at Lemercier. Bénédite writes that since its emergence, routine and
excessive production decayed chromolithography, a medium he finds “weary” and “exhausted” though
ultimately saved by skilled printers from being used only for reproduction.
⁠
Léonce Bénédite, preface to
Édouard Duchatel, Traité de Lithographie Artistique (Paris: É. Duchatel, 1893), 1-2.
53
their use of machine presses as well as zinc plates rather than stones. Stone lithography, as was
used in the first half of the nineteenth century, was becoming less common in the print trade by
the century’s end, a decline noted by Lemercier. Evidently, Lemercier was concerned about the
future of lithography: “I hear repeated that lithography will come back into favor, that we cannot
leave behind this art; but how will it come back, when and who will take care of reviving it?”
92

Having devoted his entire career towards growing lithography as an industrial process, the
elderly Lemercier worried that the diversification and development of new, hybrid processes
moved the firm away from the original form of lithographic production.
Two years after Lemercier’s statement, a bust of the firm’s founder was gifted to him by
his workers and installed in the workshop in his honor in 1884. The event was commemorated
with a written biography and formal portrait of the entire firm. [Figure 1.6] In contrast with the
1840s lithograph featuring the same hand presses within the same space on the Rue de Seine, the
1884 portrait is a heliogravure, a hybrid process combining photography and intaglio printing;
the material difference of these two depictions evidences the technological changes of the
nineteenth century. Rather than depicting the printers at work, in the heliogravure they gather on
the floor of the workshop and on the balcony above, framing the figure of Lemercier who stands
beneath his bust. French flags and banners decorate the space, associating the firm with pride in
the industrial arts of France. Amongst these printers stands Auguste Clot, an essayeur who had
trained at the firm and who would spend eighteen years there.
In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Lemercier faced fierce competition from
other large print firms in the growing field that it no longer dominated. In 1891, it became a
Socitété Anonyme, and in 1901, the firm became part of the British Johnston Foreign Patents

92
“Deposition de M. Lemercier,” 178.
54
Company.
93
Clot left Lemercier in 1888 and opened his own small firm around 1895. Clot’s
activity between these dates is unknown, but we might wonder whether he sensed the downturn
at Lemercier and felt it wiser to strike out on his own. Perhaps the printer recognized that the
decline of stone color lithography in the commercial setting in favor of other hybrid processes
would eventually make room for the rise of color lithography as a medium for artistic expression.

Clot as the Master, Singular Printer
Whereas Auguste Clot appears lost amongst the sea of printers in the 1884 image of the
Imprimerie Lemercier, a photograph of his atelier from 1930 illuminates how vastly different the
practice he established was from his former workplace. [Figure 1.7] Angled down, the
photograph offers a top down view of the workspace. Although only occupied by three figures,
the print shop seems crowded, with two of its three presses visible and surrounded by stacks of
paper. Clot and the artist Luc Albert Moreau are in the midst of the trial proof process, with the
artist reviewing the most recent print. Clot appears lost in thought, his hand on the star wheel of
the press as if he had just passed the sheet in Moreau’s hand through it. Behind him stands his
son André who was likely in the midst of taking over the business from his soon-to-retire father,
who died in 1936. The photograph conveys the sheer volume of work undertaken by Clot and
later his son. Papers are everywhere: papers to be printed, prints waiting for review, and
completed editions ready for retrieval by artists or publishers. An intimate space, Clot’s
workshop counters the industrial setting of Lemercier.
Clot trained for years at Lemercier, eventually working as a chromiste and an essayeur,
two roles that situated him firmly among the “labor aristocracy” of the print shop. Although the

93
See Gilmour, “Cher Monsieur Clot,” 369n8.
55
firm had no formal apprenticeship program, Lemercier nevertheless conducted an informal
training program. Clot would have worked his way up the hierarchy over the eighteen years he
spent at Lemercier, learning the various positions before being assigned to roles that better suited
his abilities. In a letter written on August 27, 1888, Alfred Lemercier attested to Clot’s skills as
an essayeur, the role he held when he left the firm. [Figure 1.8] As an essayeur, Clot would have
performed the tasks connected to the trial proof printing process, including the mixing and
application of color inks, color registration, and making any changes based on clients’ feedback.
All of the other steps involved in the printmaking process—grinding and preparing the stone,
hand transferring images to the color stones, and printing an entire edition—would have been
carried out by others.
When Clot established his own practice, the setting and nature of his work changed
dramatically.
94
He set up a small print shop with three hand presses on the Rue du Cherche-Midi
in the sixth arrondissement in Paris.
95
As its founder, Clot became the atelier’s master printer, but
because of the small space and perhaps due to financial restrictions, he was also the workshop’s
only printer. References in letters to Clot to “gamins” and an assistant suggest that he may have
had the occasional help of a young boy to run errands. Clot also eventually trained his son,
André, who apprenticed and worked with Clot and later took over the family business after

94
Clot left Lemercier in 1888, according to the letter of attestation, but did not open his atelier until
around 1895. His activity between 1888 and 1895 is unknown except for his involvement in the printing
of the extensive catalogue La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité–Moyen Age–Renaissance (1890-1892),
published by Lemercier. It is possible he worked in a freelance capacity during this time.
95
The atelier changed addresses on the Rue du Cherche-Midi several times—originally it was at 23 and in
later years it was at 25 and then 102—until the atelier moved to the Marais in 1968. The Atelier Clot,
Bramsen & Georges, Paris, as it is now called, still exists to this day, run by Christian Bramsen. Christian
and the other printers, Ariel, Thomas, and Priscille, generously welcomed me into the atelier where I
spent many afternoons speaking with them about the history of the atelier and printmaking in Paris.
56
Clot’s retirement. The majority of the workshop’s activity and production, however, rested
entirely in Clot’s hands.
Because he worked primarily alone in his atelier, the type of labor Clot performed also
changed considerably from his experience at Lemercier. In contrast with Lemercier’s manual—a
published and mass produced how-to of industry—the inner workings of Clot’s atelier are
captured in an unpublished, largely unorganized collection of letters. The practice of this lone
printer emerges from the extensive archive of letters sent by publishers, artists, and colleagues to
Clot, illuminating the types of work that the printer performed in the context of his smaller
atelier.
96
In particular, the letters illustrate the wide range of responsibilities Clot held. He
continued to execute the tasks that he had carried out in his role of essayeur, which critic André
Mellerio described as the work of an “expert.”
97
Clot also carried out the numerous other
responsibilities of “ordinary workers,” Mellerio’s term to distinguish specialized printers from
their unskilled colleagues.
98
In his atelier, Clot performed every role, blurring the lines between
unskilled and skilled work and technical and craft labor that had divided and structured the work
within a large-scale firm such as Lemercier.
In The Craftsman, sociologist Richard Sennett offers a theoretical approach to
understanding manual work that encourages a rethinking of the hierarchy of labor, particularly in
the context of work such as Clot’s. Sennett contends that craftsmanship, defined as “the skill of

96
The archive of letters in the Fonds Auguste Clot captures Clot’s daily activities and the roles he
assumed in this small-scale atelier. The Fonds Auguste Clot consists of photocopies of around 500 letters
and documents housed in the Département des estampes et de la photographie at the Bibliothèque
nationale de France in Paris. The archive comprises letters sent to Auguste Clot and his son André by
artists, dealers, publishers, critics, printers, and colleagues.
97
Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, 98-99.
98
Ibid.
57
making things well,” and technical skills emerge from the connection of the hand and head.
99

Manual labor is thus never divorced from intellectual thought; technique is not purely a
mechanical action, but involves the mental labor of a person who developed skills through a
trained practice. Although craftsmen typically repeated a learned skill, Sennett notes that the
routine can be understood as engaging, as one looks ahead and organizes during a manual
activity. The repetition of a learned gesture becomes embodied; as Sennett writes, “Built into the
contraction of the human heart, the skilled craftsman has extended rhythm to the hand and the
eye.”
100
In Clot’s case, the concentration required, the control over every detail, the constant
adjustments, and the anticipation of the next complicated step render the more technical practices
of printing mentally engaging. Sennett calls this the “rhythmic skill of the craftsman.”
101

Drawing on Sennett’s theory that all manual work involves intellectual thought, we can
see that the labor hierarchy established in the industrial setting no longer applies within the
context of Clot’s practice, in which he performed all of the roles that had been divided amongst
many printers at Lemercier. Furthermore, Sennett’s study helps us to look beyond the period
divisions of unskilled and skilled, technical and craft work and to value all aspects of labor such
as Clot’s. Tracing the stages of production involved in printmaking, through close analysis of the
letters sent to Clot from artists and publishers and the requests, demands, questions,
compliments, and frustrations conveyed therein, we can uncover the many facets of Clot’s labor.

99
Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 9. Sennett’s study is part
of a larger discourse on the intellectual qualities of making, a subject of particular significance to critics
writing on industrialization in the nineteenth century. For example, John Ruskin suggests that the
handmade object contains feeling—originality, thought, and expressivity—that is lacking in objects cast
through industrial means. See John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (London: Smith, Elder, and
Co., 1849).
100
Ibid.
101
Ibid., 178.
58
Early Stages of Preparation
Belying the delicate materiality of the finished print product, the lithographic process
required significant labor, from the initial transportation and preparation of stones, the eventual
correction and proofing process, and finally, the operation of the press to produce an entire
edition of prints. Letters suggest that Clot spent considerable time devoted to the early stages of
preparation, and the grinding, treatment, and proofing of lithographic stones, in particular, were a
large part of his everyday routine. Artists frequently wrote to Clot requesting a prepared, or
ground, stone. In lithography the artist or printer draws the image onto the surface of the matrix,
so the stone can be reused by grinding down the surface after an edition is completed. Before
beginning a new edition, Clot would grind stones by wetting and stacking two stones on top of
each other, surface to surface, and moving the top stone in fluid, x-shape diagonal motions.
[Figure 1.9] This is repeated numerous times with different textures of sand, from rough grit to
fine textured sand. The time-consuming process prepares the stone’s surface for direct drawing
or the transferring of an image using transfer paper. Grinding a lithographic stone requires
extensive practice and experience; the learned gesture relies on a haptic understanding of texture,
movement, and speed.
102
As Lemercier writes in his guide, grinding stones, as well as other
manual skills involved in the lithographic process, including the chemical treatment of the stone
for printing and the use of a roller to ink the stone, may appear easy to someone unfamiliar with
the craft. But to perform these manual tasks, the “brain directs the arms.”
103

In addition to the manual work of preparing stones, an important part of Clot’s atelier
business was the selling, storing, and renting of stones. Clot sold stones to artists interested in

102
My thanks to Leyla Rzayeva at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA for explaining and
demonstrating this process in detail during a lithography workshop in January 2020.
103
Lemercier, La Lithographie française, 147-148.
59
experimenting in lithography, including Edvard Munch. An 1897 letter from Munch to Clot
mentions the sale of 23 stones to the artist.
⁠104
Here Clot may have been working as an
intermediary between artists and the print trade, although it is possible that he sold his own
stones to Munch. Clot also held artists’ stones in his atelier. Stones could be ground and reused,
so leaving images on their surfaces meant that they were out of commission. In order to avoid
losing income, Clot charged fees for their storage and rental. In 1897, Theóphile Steinlen, for
example, requested that Clot send publisher André Marty a stone stored at the atelier that had the
artist’s drawing on it.
⁠105
Because Marty had a contract with Lemercier for the publication, Clot
had to send the stone to Marty who would bring it to Lemercier. Clot, at least, would have
profited from the storage of his stone, which would be out of commission until the project was
complete. Clot’s temporary storing of stones for artists is reminiscent of Lemercier’s practice of
storing stones in the workshop until a company requested the reprinting of a label; in Clot’s
atelier, however, the printer did not have enough stones or space to store stones indefinitely.
Clot also juggled the logistics of transporting cumbersome and extremely heavy stones all
over Paris. Here he had assistance in the form of a young boy who delivered and collected stones
from the homes and studios of artists. Many letters from artists requested that Clot prepare and
drop off stones so that they could draw directly on the stone in their own time and space.
Typically, artists requested one or two stones, but in a letter from 1896, artist Pierre-Georges
Jeanniot asked Clot to deliver ten stones so that he could continue work on his lithograph.
106
The
transportation of stones was undoubtedly a necessary part of Clot’s job but also an inconvenient
task, especially when artists worked far from the workshop. Jean Veber alludes to this distance in

104
Edvard Munch to Auguste Clot, 29 May 1897, Fonds Auguste Clot, Département des estampes et de la
photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Paris.
105
Theophile Steinlen to Clot, 2 Jan. 1897, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.

106
Pierre-Georges Jeanniot to Clot, 1 Sept. 1896, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
60
a 1907 letter complaining that his atelier is too far from the Rue du Cherche-Midi; rather than
come to see Clot, the artist decided to send his comments and corrections for Clot to make on his
stones based on trial proofs the printer sent to him.
107

Clot’s work with stones did not end once he had them back in his atelier; he still needed
to proof them. Clot chemically prepared and printed a proof of a stone with an artist’s drawing,
which had either been drawn in reverse directly onto its surface by the artist or transferred from
transfer paper onto the stone by Clot. Artists making original color lithographs sometimes
worked with transfer paper, using a greasy crayon to draw directly on a paper coated with a
soluble layer. Because lithographic stones were unwieldy, transfer paper offered an appealing
alternative to working directly on stone’s surface. It also permitted artists to avoid the
complexity of drawing in reverse. Clot would place the transfer paper with the image face down
on the stone, dampening the paper so that the grease on the crayon transferred and adhered to the
stone’s surface. Transfer paper left a grained or textured impression on the stone’s surface; in a
printed image, this texture reveals the use of transfer paper, although artists often initially
employed transfer paper and then made adjustments directly on the surface after Clot had
proofed the stone.
Once on the stone, the image then needed to be fixed onto its surface through a chemical
process. Clot treated the surface with gum arabic and a mixture of gum arabic and small amounts
of nitric acid.
108
Then he rubbed powdered rosin over the surface, which allows the acid to
adhere better, followed by talc to reduce the surface tension. Once the printer applied the
chemical treatment, he used a roller to apply an overly greasy black ink onto the surface of the

107
Jean Veber to Clot, 20 March 1907, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
108
Lemercier describes these materials and the process in his manual. See Lemercier, La Lithographie
française, 17-19.
61
stone to draw out the image. The “roll up” is followed by the application of mineral spirits
followed by lithotine. Once the image is fixed onto the surface, it can be inked with a roller. The
process of inking can be strenuous and labor intensive as it requires rolling ink over the surface
many times in order to get the ink into the porous surface of the stone to adhere to the ink used
for the roll up. This stone, typically referred to as the “keystone,” contained the outline of the
entire image, or its skeleton.
Artists eagerly awaited Clot’s completion of the proofing process because following this
step, he would prepare a printed proof for their review. Even if the lithograph was to be
eventually printed in color, before color separation took place, the printer would pull a print in
black. From this proof, artists could see the composition and gradations of tone and make any
necessary adjustments on the stone’s surface, either himself or by requesting the printer’s
assistance. In letters, artists often refer to this step when they write of wanting to see Clot’s proof
in order to make “retouches.” The artists typically planned to drop by the workshop to see a
proof shortly after Clot retrieved the stone. For instance, the artist J. E. Blanche sent Clot a stone
complete with a drawing, stating that he would stop by the workshop the next evening to see
what the printer had pulled on his press.
109
Artists frequently discussed this step with Clot in
person, asking him to prepare the proof for their review in his atelier. At this stage they also
might have discussed color with Clot, an element of the print perhaps difficult to imagine given
that the keystone was pulled in black ink.
It is unlikely that Clot completed these preparatory steps in his final role at Lemercier;
Clot’s expertise in grinding, preparing, and proofing stones, however, had emerged from his
early years training at Lemercier. At his atelier, Clot’s execution of these steps—even with the

109
J. E. Blanche to Clot, undated, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
62
assistance of another worker—would have slowed the production process considerably. This is
especially true given the number of artists with whom he was working at any given moment.
Indeed, many letters sent to Clot complain of the printer’s tardiness and failure to meet
deadlines. Lithography’s reputation for being efficient within the industrial setting did not apply
to Clot’s practice, which became slow and methodical as he alone carried out each stage of the
labor-intensive process. His status as master printer and his involvement with every minor step
of the printmaking process, although time consuming, also appeared to guarantee clients his
careful attention and expertise in all aspects of the work. In consequence, Clot soon developed a
reputation as a skilled, capable printer who consistently produced high-quality work.

Color Processes
In the aspects of printing related to color, Clot resumed the roles he had performed at
Lemercier; in his own workshop, however, he was responsible for both color separation and the
trial proof printing process, tasks that had been divided between chromistes and essayeurs at
Lemercier. Color separation, also called decomposition, was either executed by hand—when a
printer or artist hand copied the different parts of an image onto separate stones based on color—
or through the system of faux décalques. For the latter, Clot transferred the calque—the skeleton
drawing on the maitrise or keystone—onto several different stones. These transfers were called
faux décalques because they served as a guide for the artist or printer, who would then draw the
sections to be printed on each stone in color. Each stone would contain only the segments meant
to be printed in one color. Clot made the faux décalques by inking part of a stone with a special,
greasy type of ink called noir à monté. Clot applied the noir à monté on the keystone, upon
which he then placed a papier report. The papier report then transferred the image from the
63
maitrise onto a new stone. This process was repeated based on the number of stones.
Chromolithographs produced at Lemercier might include ten colors, such as in the advertisement
for color separation published by Lemercier in Le Figaro, and even up to thirty colors; because
of the artists’ preferences, most color lithographs printed by Clot were frequently closer to five
colors.
110
Lemercier’s advertisement shows and explains the complexity of the faux décalques
process, which required considerable skill and training.

[Figure 1.5] When Lemercier describes
the process of using faux décalques in his manual, he writes that this process “demands great
care; many workers do this badly, and their negligence often compromises a job that took the
artist a long time.”
111
Performing this role himself, Clot could guarantee that color separation
was carried out with care and expertise.
Clot also excelled in the trial proof process that followed color separation. To print a trial
proof, Clot would mix and prepare ink, ink each stone, and, using the same paper, pass each
stone through the press so that the impressions of color layered on top of each other on the
paper’s surface.
112
Trial proofs frequently revealed any necessary adjustments in color ink or
registration. Clot used as color guides various sources and preliminary drawings that artists
provided. Nevertheless, it was difficult to know how these colors—typically drawn by the artist
in watercolor, pastel, crayon, or oil—would translate into lithographic ink. Furthermore,
although the printer and artist may have had a sense of the composition from the black print

110
Lemercier also describes this process of using faux décalques in his manual. See Lemercier, La
Lithographie française, 171.
111
Ibid., 172.
112
While it is possible that Clot ground and mixed his own inks in his atelier, he was nevertheless familiar
with pre-mixed inks from his years at Lemercier. Whether or not he ground his inks, Clot purchased his
materials from Lorilleux, Charbonnel, or Lefranc, some of the premier printing ink producers of the
period. We know from letters Clot received that he also purchased materials from Lorilleux for some of
his clients who were interested in the printing process, including Jeanniot.
64
pulled from the keystone, at this later stage, they could now see how the colors mix and how they
might look alongside each other.
Clot would have worked most closely with artists in person during the trial proof process,
carving out considerable time for each artist’s project. Artists often participated in printing trial
proofs, examining the prints and requesting changes to various aspects of the image. A trial proof
offered the artist and printer a visual to discuss and adjust. The artist might wish to change the
order of printing or to adjust the tone of one or more colors. The printer might make suggestions
regarding how best to achieve their imagined final artwork. The trial proof stage is also when the
printer made any necessary adjustments to the registration to ensure that the plate remained
aligned with others when passed over paper in the press. Letters refer to this back and forth
exchange, and annotated proofs indicate the types of changes required before the final version
was decided upon. Once the artist approved of the proof, they would sign bon-à-tirer (“good for
pulling”), indicating that the printer could then carry out the remainder of the edition.
In the trial proof process, Clot’s skill and expertise were particularly necessary and
valued. Experienced with the process after years working as a printer, Clot would have a better
sense than the artist of how the colors would mix and play. He might guide the artist or suggest
possible changes. In some cases, when the artist was uninvolved—either uninterested or not
physically present—Clot would have undoubtedly made aesthetic decisions using his technical
skill and artistic understanding of color. Clot’s expertise with color, praised and valued at
Lemercier, is the reason above all else that artists insisted on printing with him rather than with
other printers.
Indeed, Clot’s experience, knowledge, and creativity regarding color printing enabled
him to invent new processes of artistic practice. He developed tools for artists, including a
65
special type of tracing paper and a set of color lithographic crayons.
113
These materials helped
artists work more creatively and effortlessly in the medium of color lithography, contributing
overall to the development of the limited edition original color lithograph. The readily available
transfer paper, for example, irritated some artists because of its texture. According to letters in
Clot’s archive and conversations with Christian Bramsen at the Atelier Clot, Clot developed a
special type of transfer paper, referred to by artists as “Papier Clot.”
114
Clot developed a method
in which an artist could draw on any type of paper, from which he could transfer the image to the
stone. Transfer paper was often greasy or messy, causing complaints from artists who were
frustrated by their dependence on that material. Steinlen referred to Clot’s special paper, writing,
“Prepare for me another twenty sheets of your excellent papier auto.”
115
Even the name of this
paper—papier auto—suggests that the artist could work more intuitively on this special paper.
He would then hand over the drawing to Clot, who would transfer it directly onto stone, ensuring
the artist that nothing in the drawing would be lost in the process.
Clot also developed a type of lithographic crayon to assist artists drawing on the stone. In
the lithographic printmaking process, artists drew on the stone’s surface using a greasy black
crayon. The crayon’s marks, however, did not correspond in any way to the color to be printed
from them. When an artist drew upon the stone, the lines he made would always be black, rather
than the color the artist envisioned. Only later would the printer roll color ink over the stone,

113
In an account of Clot’s practice in his 1906 book on printmaking techniques, print publisher André
Marty writes about Clot’s paper as well as his development of color crayons: “Mr. Clot has found the
formula of special pencils which, colored in red, blue, yellow, green, etc., allow the painter most ignorant
of the lithographic processes to draw in color on a sheet of paper with no special preparation. To obtain
proofs of these drawings, all you have to do is entrust them to Mr. Clot, who chemically decomposes each
of the colors, without in any way involving his science of facsimile lithographer.” André Marty,
L'Imprimerie et les procédés de gravure au vingtième siècle (Paris: Chez l'auteur, 1906), 59-60.
114
Christian Bramsen (master printer, Atelier Clot, Bramsen & Georges, Paris) in discussion with the
author, July 5, 2016.
115
Steinlen to Clot, undated, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
66
where the ink’s grease would attach to the greasy black crayon of the drawing on the matrix.
This aspect of the printing process proved difficult for some artists, who struggled to associate
the black of their lines with the color they intended them to be. In an effort to facilitate the
artist’s process, Clot developed a formula for colored crayons that could be used on regular
paper.
116
From these drawings, Clot would “decompose” the colors without using his skills as a
draftsman to copy over the image onto the stone’s surface. In this manner, the artist’s directly
composed drawing would be the basis of the print, but the artist could also use color when
making the drawing. Clot’s training and experience in color gave him the creative flexibility to
imagine new methods to experiment in color lithography; in turn he shared these techniques and
invented tools for artists with whom he worked to make the process easier for them as well as for
himself. Like the firm of Lemercier, which was involved in the business of lithography through
its development of presses, tools, and materials, Clot too expanded his practice into the
production of artists’ materials. While Lemercier’s developments contributed to the
industrialization and expansion of lithography, Clot’s innovations focused on cultivating the
creative work of his clients, many of whom were unfamiliar with the intricacies of lithographic
printing. In other words, his contributions specifically helped artists enrich their original work in
color lithography.

116
Mentions of these specially produced color crayons emerged in several areas during my research.
Christian Bramsen first alerted me to their invention, which I later confirmed in Marty’s 1906
L'Imprimerie et les procédés de gravure au vingtième siècle. Later, Christian elaborated on Clot’s
innovation crayons, explaining that Clot had in fact requested these crayons from Lorilleux, the important
ink company of this period. Color lithographic crayons from Clot’s time still exist in the atelier. Christian
Bramsen (master printer, Atelier Clot, Bramsen & Georges, Paris) in discussion with the author, July 5,
2016 and January 17, 2019.
67
Print Production
While the artist’s involvement concluded with the bon à tirer, Clot then faced the
considerable task of printing the entire edition, which included running each print through the
press multiple times to layer color. At Lemercier, following Clot’s work as an essayeur, the
printing of an edition would have been the responsibility of several printers operating machine
presses. As Mellerio notes, the essayeur was “the expert to whom it falls to do the research and
experiments which lead to the printing, and when his work is finished, in the case of a large
edition, the process is continued either by ordinary workers or by the machine.”
117
By contrast, in
Clot’s workshop, he himself carried out this tremendous task. The process involved the setting
up of the press, the mixing of inks, the rolling of inks onto rollers and then onto the stone, the
constant wetting of the stone between inking to avoid chemical “burning,” and the running of the
inked stone, with paper on top of it, through the press by hand using the star wheel. Clot’s atelier
specialized in art prints, so the majority of his projects were limited editions of about 100 or 150
prints.
118
The limited number of impressions made it possible for Clot to do the printing himself,
although the process was still labor intensive for one person. The printing of an edition of 100
prints in five colors, for instance, required that Clot pass each piece of paper through the press
five times. For the entire edition, Clot would need to run the hand press five hundred times.
Because all of the steps were completed by hand and by Clot, the number of hours to complete
an edition size would have been substantial.

117
Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, 98-99.
118
Letters sent to Clot, however, also refer to prints ordered for journals that consisted of thousands of
copies. As Pat Gilmour notes, at times Clot would produce prints for journals such as Pan, Studio, and
L’Art Decoratif, wherein the edition sizes could reach 1500 to 5000 copies, though this was not typical.
See Gilmour, “Cher Monsieur Clot,” 151.
68
The successful execution of an entire edition would require Clot to move smoothly,
efficiently, and expertly through the steps of wetting and inking the stone, setting it into the
press, and operating the press. Many of the actions associated with lithographic printing relied
upon an intimate familiarity with how the process should feel. In other words, Clot relied on
touch—as Sennett explains, the hand providing information to the brain that the eye could not.
119

The printing of an edition required haptic knowledge, including understanding when the ink is
ready for application onto the stone based on the texture it makes on the roller, the gesture and
cadence for the arm movement when wetting and inking the stone, and the pressure of the press’s
bar, which could not be too tight or too loose. Although Clot would have repeated these same
processes countless times, the routine does not necessarily imply boredom; rather it calls to mind
the craftsman’s “rhythmic skill” noted by Sennett.
120

The Value of the Printer’s Labor
The artisanal nature of Clot’s practice was in many ways a return to preindustrial,
experimental lithographic workshops. Antoine Raucourt described the importance of capable
printers and the scope of their work in his 1819 manual, writing,
…the art of lithography is a most difficult one; it is consequently earnestly recommended to
those who wish to set up a lithographic establishment to select intelligent and clever printers;
they must have some notions of drawing, and of what constitutes a good print; they must be
able to distinguish the different plans of a drawing, so as to give it more effect in the printing.
A lithographic printer is a real artist, and all the impressions he produces bear the stamp of
his degree of talent; when he has wetted his stone, and has got his roller in his hands, he may
be compared to an artist who is giving the last finishing touch to an Indian ink, or a Sepia
drawing, like the painter, the printer must study the effect of his drawings, and distribute his
ink accordingly...
121

119
Sennett, The Craftsman, 152-153.
120
Ibid., 175.
121
Raucourt, A Manual of Lithography, 93-94.
69
Raucourt’s description of the printer’s intelligence, artistic ability, and work with the stone, the
roller, and the inks suggests that Clot essentially reassumed the role of the preindustrial printer.
Clot’s labor and workshop, however, cannot be understood as merely a revival of a traditional
practice because of how fundamentally lithography changed over the course of the nineteenth
century. Indeed, the tasks carried out by Clot in his workshop show that the printer also
continued many of the same practices performed within industrial settings like that of Lemercier.
Rather than divided amongst numerous hands, different tasks were carried out by one singular
printer, Clot. While Clot’s work had been labeled and clearly delineated within the context of
Lemercier, his work as master printer of his own atelier is more nebulous because of its wide
range. In the context of Clot’s atelier, the printer’s labor is impossible to define because it
disrupts boundaries of skilled and unskilled, technical and artistic. His labor becomes difficult to
characterize precisely because it reconsolidates industrial lithographic practices and processes
within the artisanal workshop. Clot did not return lithography to a preindustrial process but
instead transformed and reframed its industrial aspects to create a new mode of production that
became inherently associated with a new category of art: the limited edition original color
lithograph.
The value of limited edition prints inheres in the master printer’s process because his
reconsolidation of labor and his atelier setting helped to distinguish art prints from commercial
prints produced in an industrial context. Clot’s practice was dedicated to the printing of art
lithographs, creating an affiliation between the types of prints he crafted within the small
workshop and the nature of his labor. His workshop’s letterhead advertises this, featuring the
name of the singular printer, A. Clot, surrounded by an ornate, art nouveau design of a small
child in a cherry blossom tree; the specification of “Imprimerie d’Arts noir et couleurs”—print
70
shop of the arts in black and color—follows the printer’s name. [Figure 1.10] While Lemercier
had thrived upon the firm’s diverse output, which included both commercial and art lithographs,
Clot’s workshop specialized in art prints. As Lemercier was associated with industry and
commercial printing, Clot’s practice served to distinguish and elevate the prints pulled in his
studio as art. The diversification of lithography made it an industry, and the subsequent
specialization at the end of the nineteenth century helped transform it back into an art form.
Artists recognized the significance of the printer’s labor, immortalizing Clot and his
colleagues. In a series of autobiographical sketches featuring places in Paris significant to the
artist, Pierre Bonnard depicts Auguste Clot in his workshop, one hand operating the star wheel of
his press while the other steadies the stone. [Figure 1.11] Next to Clot, Bonnard includes himself
at work drawing directly onto a stone. The two men, close colleagues and friends, work side by
side, collaborating on the production of an original, limited edition print. Another print, likely by
Loys Delteil, another of Clot’s clients, depicts the printer alone at the press, roller in hand, at
work on the stone.
122
[Figure 1.12] The outline of the print refers to the process of its own
making; the rounded edges indicating the outline of the stone from which this lithograph was
pulled. The portrayals of Clot and his workshop by Bonnard and Delteil echo Lautrec’s
rendering of Père Cotelle, a print that also valorizes the printer’s labor. In all three, the setting of
the workshop is small, and the prints convey an intimacy and quiet that contrasts with the
depictions of the bustling Imprimerie Lemercier and Imprimerie Paul Dupont. All three highlight

122
This may be one of a series of portraits of printmakers made by Delteil, though notably, it appears to
be a lithograph, not an etching. Delteil and Clot were colleagues, and there are letters from Delteil to Clot
in the Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF. Delteil also assisted in the sale of Clot’s collection at auction in 1919.
For more on Delteil, see Britany Salsbury, “Loys Delteil (1869-1927): Community and Contemporary
Print Collecting in Fin-de-Siècle France,” in Collecting Prints, Posters, and Ephemera: Perspectives in a
Global World, eds. Ruth E. Iskin and Britany Salsbury (London and New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts,
2020), 44-60.
71
the centrality of the printer’s manual labor and artisanal workspace in producing modern fine art
color lithographs, distinct from the mass-produced, brightly colored prints of the
chromolithographic industry.

72

CHAPTER TWO
The Printer’s Collaboration: The Craft of Color

In 1897, the Nabi artist Maurice Denis worked with master printer Auguste Clot to
produce the five-color lithograph, Le Reflet dans la fontaine, for the portfolio titled L'Album
d'estampes originales de la Galerie Vollard. [Figure 2.1] The final print is awash with muted
greens in a range of tones, marked by lighter spaces that delineate the bodies, faces, and
architecture within the quaint outdoor garden. In a July 1897 letter from Denis to Clot, the artist
likely refers to this lithograph, noting his approval of the most recent shade of green: “I like the
green plate for Vollard as it is…You can pull it.”
123
The artist’s statement suggests that the green
color had been a topic of deliberation as well as a result of trial and error. Indeed, this letter
marked the end of a complex process of adjusting the print’s color and composition before its
final printing, one that involved prolonged conversation between the artist and Clot, technical
and intellectual work done by both, and many aesthetic choices made by each. In a version of
this print, Denis included a dedication: “To M. Clot, souvenir of a laborious operation.”
124

Denis’s colophon registers the artist’s recognition of the printer’s heavy hand in the production
process and frames the print itself as a testimonial, a “souvenir” of his work and perhaps, more
significantly, what amounted to their collaboration. This collaborative “laborious operation”
occurred primarily in the production of color.

123
Maurice Denis to Auguste Clot, 22 July 1897, Fonds Auguste Clot, Département des estampes et de la
photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Paris. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are
my own.
124
Denis inscribed: “À M. Clot Souvenir d’une operation laborieuse.” The version of the print with the
dedication to Auguste Clot is housed in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
73
Many art historians have focused on the originality and avant-garde nature of the work
done by artists in color lithography in the 1890s.
125
Scholars invested in formal questions note
the way that artists developed their ideas based on the constraints of the medium, using flat and
layered colors and compressing space to create compositions within the confines of the stone’s
surface.
126
Other historians of visual culture have traced and analyzed the rise of color prints in
nineteenth-century France within the context of growing bourgeois consumption, celebrity and
cabaret culture, and the popular press.
127
While these studies provide essential social and cultural
context for the chromolithographic revolution, the importance of color production, wherein the
artist’s creative vision combined with the printer’s skillful handling of color ink, remains
understudied.
This chapter explores how color functioned as a critically valuable element of the original
color lithograph, a new category of art codified by publishers and critics in this period. Through
color, art and industry intersected in print. Within the color revolution of the nineteenth century,
the development of color printing ink, in particular, played a crucial role in the growth of
chromolithography as an industry; color printers’ expert handling of this material in turn

125
One of the first such studies was Phillip Dennis Cate and Sinclair Hitchings’s influential 1978
catalogue on the “color revolution.” See Cate and Hitchings, The Color Revolution: Color Lithography in
France, 1890-1900 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Art Gallery, 1978).
126
See Bridget Alsdorf, “Bonnard’s Sidewalk Theater,” nonsite.org 14 (Dec.15, 2014),
http://nonsite.org/article/bonnards-sidewalk-theater.
127
See Laurence Schmidlin, ed., Enraptured by Color Printmaking in Late 19th-Century France (Vevey:
Scheidegger and Spiess, 2018); Christine Giviskos, Set in Stone: Lithography in Paris, 1815-1900 (New
Brunswick, NJ: Hirmer Publishers, 2018); Laura Anne Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism:
Commerce, Technology, and Art (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2017); Patricia
Mainardi, Another World: Nineteenth-Century Illustrated Print Culture (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2017); Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho and Marije Vellekoop, Printmaking in Paris: The Rage for
Prints at the Fin de Siècle (Brussels; Amsterdam: Mercatorfonds, 2013); Mary Weaver Chapin, “Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec and the Café-Concert,” in Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, eds. Richard Thomson
Phillip Dennis Cate, and Mary Weaver Chapin (Washington, D.C.; National Gallery of Art, 2005), 46-63.
74
appealed to avant-garde artists interested in working with printers to experiment in lithography in
the century’s final decades.
Printers controlled the material of color, but they were not merely technicians. They
played an active role in the conception of color, guiding artists and working with them closely in
choosing color and refining color selections. By considering Auguste Clot’s atelier, letters, and
annotations on trial proofs as well as the printmaking process itself, this chapter demonstrates
that the production of color in limited edition original color lithography was an inherently
collaborative undertaking. Rather than working out color alone in their studios, artists thought,
imagined, and created with master printers like Clot, either in person or through an extensive
exchange of letters and proofs. While the artist conceived the design, through collaboration with
the printer, the image took shape in color.
Through Clot’s collaboration in the conception of color—as well as in its production—
the master printer redefined the relationship between art and industry. Critics, publishers, and
artists saw his expertise with the material of color ink as helping to elevate color lithographs to
the realm of art by enabling artists working with him to achieve the avant-garde colors for which
they were known. Critics, however, became uneasy with his involvement, perceiving it as both a
benefit and a threat to the prints’ originality. Although it remains evident in the prints’ colors, the
printer’s significant collaborative role, I contend, ultimately required erasure in order for these
prints to enter the market as original artworks by singular artists.

The Industrialization of Color in France
It is by now common knowledge to think that the world became dramatically more
visually and materially colorful in nineteenth-century France as a result of the proliferation of
75
new technologies, consumer items, and mass media. Prior to the nineteenth century, sumptuous
natural dyes remained a luxury exclusively reserved for upper classes and royalty. The
introduction of synthetic dyes in the nineteenth century democratized color, making vibrantly
hued products available for purchase by more people. As Laura Anne Kalba has shown, in
France, urban life was transformed by the mass production of color found everywhere, including
in such objects as artificial flowers, posters, clothing, and even fireworks.
128

The revolution in color was not only a material concern in the nineteenth century, but
also a theoretical one. The interest in color shared by artisans, manufacturers, critics, artists, and
the public was in part cultivated by the work of French chemist Michel-Eugène Chevreul.
Chevreul, director of the Manufacture royal des Gobelins, the national tapestry workshop of
France, published his influential study on color perception called De la loi du contraste
simultané des couleurs in 1839. His study stated that the perception of colors changed when a
color was juxtaposed next to another or several other colors. His system for their identification
and classification circulated around France primarily through color wheels and color charts.
[Figure 2.2] While Chevreul’s theories proved influential for avant-garde artists, as Kalba notes,
the chemist’s work was in fact developed for use in the industrial production of tapestries,
clothing, various aspects of interior decoration, and color printing.
129

Due to technological developments in chromolithography in the second half of the
nineteenth century, color entered and circulated in the public sphere in the form of posters, trade
cards, calendars, and other advertisements. Although color lithography had been possible from
lithography’s invention, it remained labor intensive and expensive to produce; it was thus rare

128
Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism, 2-3.
129
Ibid., 17.
76
and reserved for the reproduction of fine artworks.
130
Technological advances in the 1860s and
1870s rendered the large-scale production of chromolithographs possible on mechanical steam
presses. Scholars such as Kalba, Ruth Iskin, Ségolène Le Men, and Hazel Hahn have
investigated the emergence and growing popularity of chromolithography through the study of
posters in particular, examining how bright and colorful posters blanketed the streets of Paris,
transforming the visual culture of urban life.
131
Such objects were dependent on a material that
few, however, have taken the time to study: the new and mass produced color ink.

Manufacturing Color Ink
An 1893 chromolithographic advertisement features a seated woman wearing a kimono, a
subject matter that may have appealed to the public interest in art, visual culture, motifs, and
printmaking from Japan known as japonisme. [Figure 2.3] The advertisement is not for
entertainment or fashion, however, but rather for lithographic printing ink, as indicated by the
heading “Couleurs de Ch. Lorilleux & Cie.” The ad appeared in Bulletin de l’imprimerie, a
journal started in the 1870s and published by the ink firm Ch. Lorilleux et Cie. Printers used
Lorilleux ink to print the journal, making the entire publication an advertisement for the firm.
Additionally, the journal featured separate insert advertisements of color samples as well as more
complex advertisements illustrating how Lorilleux inks appeared when printed layered and
alongside each other, as exemplified by this skillfully printed image. Indeed, the main focus of

130
Ibid.,152-160. As discussed in chapter one, in the first half of the nineteenth, printers created color
lithographs through hand coloring or printing tinted lithographs.
131
See Ségolène Le Men, Seurat et Chéret: Le Peintre, le cirque, et l’affiche (Paris: CNRS, 1994); Hazel
H. Hahn, Scenes of Parisian Modernity: Culture and Consumption in the Nineteenth Century (New York:
Palmgrave Macmillan, 2009); Ruth E. Iskin, The Poster: Art, Advertising, Design, and Collecting, 1860s–
1900s (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2014); and Kalba, “Chromolithography: Posters, Trade
Cards, and the Politics of Ephemera Collecting in Fin-de-Siècle France” in Color in the Age of
Impressionism, 149-181.
77
the advertisement is the material through which the image was produced. The table of color
swatches and color names are as much on exhibition as the final print; they indicate precisely
which lithographic inks printers used to create the image. The color spectrum at the bottom of the
advertisement lists the eight colors printers employed, including jaune pale, bleu de chine, bleu
d’orient, vermillion, gris chaud, garance sienne et vermillion, garance, and noir et laque.
Intended for a readership made up of professional printers, the Lorilleux advertisement, which
was part of a series that appeared in Bulletin de l’imprimerie, illustrates the vibrant ink industry
that had grown over the course of the nineteenth century.
In chromolithography, colors were first and foremost materials that lithographers
purchased, prepared, mixed, and then printed. Lithography required ink of a different chemical
production than that used in intaglio and relief prints.
132
In the early days of lithography, printers
prepared ink by hand and considered it a crucial, although labor intensive step in the printing
process; printers would hand grind pigment that they would then mix with varnish. Printers
prepared only the appropriate amount of ink to be used each day and repeated the process every
morning. As lithography became more popular in France, some printers sought ways to
streamline this process by offering ink that was pre-ground and premixed with varnish. Over the
course of the nineteenth century, the large-scale production of color lithographic ink by newly
formed companies rendered obsolete the time-consuming process of preparing ink by hand.
133

132
Because lithographic ink interacted with a damp stone, it had to be more repellent to water than other
forms of printing ink. As Twyman notes, wax and tallow were added to lithographic ink. See Michael
Twyman, A History of Chromolithography: Printed Colour for All (London: British Library, 2013), 525.
133
In 1894, Maurice Vachon notes that ink was no longer ground by hand, but through mechanical
grinders. His chapter on the fabrication of inks details the large-scale and industrial production of inks at
Lefranc. Vachon’s book includes images of the ink factories of Lefranc, including the chemical lab, the
grinding studio for black inks, the fabrication of carmine and yellow, the preparation of varnish, and the
distribution of ink into tubes. The practice of hand grinding ink, however, was not an entirely obsolete
practice. In his manual published five years later, Lemercier writes about the “broyeurs,” or grinders of
ink, employed by firms such as Lorilleux to run tests on the quality of a specific ink before it was put on
78
The efficiency and range of pre-prepared color ink made it possible for firms to print large
quantities of vibrantly colored chromolithographs in the commercial sphere.
Ink companies offered printers and print firms an efficient, convenient, and consistent
product. Various companies in France emerged and expanded to produce color ink, either as part
of a larger business in color pigment manufacturing, such as Lefranc, or as its primary business,
as was the case at Ch. Lorilleux et Cie. Lorilleux, the first of these companies to produce
lithographic ink, was founded in 1818 by Pierre Lorilleux, who had previously worked as a chief
printer at the Imprimerie Royale in Paris. Lorilleux’s company offered tubs of ink composed of
ground pigment premixed with varnish.
134
According to the company’s self-published history,
printers at first resisted the change in ink production proposed by Lorilleux, not wanting to
relinquish control over this process. Lorilleux, however, persisted by insisting on the drawbacks
of hand grinding ink, which he considered time consuming, wasteful, and disruptive to the
continuous running of the printing press. The quality of his ink was high in terms of color and
consistency, which helped to convince his fellow printers to transition from hand preparing ink to
using premixed ink from Lorilleux. As lithography became increasingly popular, Lorilleux—one
of the few companies to specialize only in printing ink—grew exponentially during the
nineteenth century due to high demand for printing ink.
135
Lorilleux was the largest firm of the

the market. The color was given in the form of a stick to a printer who then took the amount needed for
that printing and crushed it into a powder using a “molette.” Then the printer added varnish to the color,
but not too much in order to prevent dilution. The printer would then put the ink on a piece of paper and
note its qualities. Lemercier describes the labor-intensive process that the firm Lorilleux aimed to get rid
of (at least based on the text they published about the history of the firm). Lorilleux wanted to maximize
efficiency and cut out this step from the printer’s daily routine. The firm must have managed this by
grinding of ink and the adding of varnish in advance of selling the ink. Alfred Lemercier, La Lithographie
française de 1796 à 1896 et les arts qui s’y rattachent. Manuel pratique s’adressant aux artistes et aux
imprimeurs (Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie, 1899), 182-187.
134
Printing inks: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie: nine factories, forty branches (Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie, c. 1910),
17-18.
135
The first location of the factory was 16 Rue Suger in Paris, and this address remained the headquarters
79
period, but other companies emerged as lithographic ink producers, including Laflèche-Bréham,
Auguste Vanhymbeeck, and Lefranc. These companies contributed to the growth of
chromolithography as an industry by providing large and consistent quantities of ink that
increased the efficiency of color printing.
The rich variety of color produced by these firms also contributed to the appeal of
chromolithography; printers had numerous choices of ink, and the chromolithographs they
produced reflected the range of available colors. The wide array of color inks manufactured by
companies in this period is evident in the vibrant promotional material the firms published.
Lorilleux in particular was committed to advertising its products using various avenues, such as
the supplément in Bulletin de l’imprimerie. In addition, the company produced pamphlets that
provided a useful color guide for printers, perhaps to be adhered to the wall of a print shop.
[Figure 2.4] Such guides both showed printers how best to mix colors as well as exhibited the
variety of inks the company manufactured. Ink companies also regularly produced color samples,
either in the form of an accordion-style specimen pamphlet containing small swatches of color or
as booklets or calendars with separate pages each printed in a different color and bearing the logo
of the firm. [Figures 2.5, 2.6ab, 2.7ab] Lorilleux also published trade manuals and journals that
further circulated its name and products and associated the firm with the history and trade of
lithography. It published Alfred Lemercier’s 1899 manual on lithography, as well as an earlier
lithography manual from 1889. [Figures 2.8 and 2.9]. These advertising materials appeared and

throughout the nineteenth century. Already by the mid-1820s demand for Lorilleux ink was growing,
leading to the building of another factory in Puteaux, just outside Paris. Pierre Lorilleux’s son Charles
became a partner in 1851, heading the firm in 1856 and changing the name to Ch. Lorilleux Fils ainé. The
company became private in 1880, and the name changed to Ch. Lorilleux et Cie. By 1910, the company
had forty-three branches in eighteen countries all over the world, including outposts in Shanghai,
Moscow, Caracas, and Tunis. Ibid.
80
circulated within the trade press, appealing to printers who worked with color ink in their
printing of commercial chromolithographs.
The range and quality of colors produced by these ink companies undoubtedly attracted
printers and artists interested in experimenting with the medium. Indeed, many of the artistic
posters designed and printed by the celebrated poster artist Jules Chéret bear his signature as well
as the name of his print firm, the Imprimerie Chaix, and the name of the ink producer, Ch.
Lorilleux et Cie. [Figure 2.10] As the designer, printer, and publisher of the poster, Chéret likely
decided to add the name; by including Lorilleux on the poster, Chéret presents the ink producer’s
involvement as equally important as that of the artist and the print firm. Indeed, the production of
color printing ink proved an important development in the context of commercial printing and
played a significant role in the production of such vibrant, exciting, and popular posters.

Color in Avant-Garde Art in the Late Nineteenth Century
As scholars have noted, Chéret’s bold and colorful posters contributed significantly to the
growing popularity of chromolithography and to the perceived elevation of posters to the status
of art above other forms of ephemeral chromolithography. Chéret was also exceptional in his
period because he was both a trained lithographer and a poster designer. After training and
working as a lithographer at various firms—among them Lemercier—he started his own print
shop in 1866 in Paris where he designed and printed his own posters.
136
In 1881, he joined the
Imprimerie Chaix as its artistic director of posters. Although his posters advertised various
products, period critics and collectors considered them artworks, as Ruth Iskin has
demonstrated.
137
Critics such Henri Béraldi, Ernest Maindron, Roger Marx, and André Mellerio

136
Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism, 161.
137
Iskin, The Poster, 52.
81
lauded the originality of Chéret’s designs and his avant-garde techniques, including the use of
large swaths of tinted color, bright tones, fluid lines, and crachis, a splatter technique he
popularized. Unlike posters that preceded his designs, Chéret’s posters, according to Iskin,
troubled the distinction between commercial and fine art. Chéret’s original designs and expert
use of color and lithographic techniques in his extensive body of work inspired younger avant-
garde painters, including Pierre Bonnard and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, to work in color
lithography to make posters and original art prints.
Many of the artists that Chéret inspired were not professional printers, but painters who
experimented with color in their artistic practice, exploring its symbolic, psychological, and
scientific value and potential. In their rejection of the traditional Salon system and the training
that accompanied this program in the final decades of the nineteenth century, avant-garde artists
abandoned the emphasis on naturalism and mimesis taught in fine arts schools such as the École
des Beaux Arts. Beginning in the mid 1870s, Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet,
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley attempted to convey the optical effects of light and
color directly through paint, producing bright and vibrant canvases. Like many artists of this
period, they were inspired in part by Chevreul’s law of the simultaneous contrast of colors.
138

[Figure 2.2] Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and their cohort, also influenced by Chevreul, rejected
Impressionism’s spontaneity and developed Divisionism, a technique that explored
juxtapositions of pure color that would mix in the viewer’s eye, rather than on the canvas.
139

Other artists of the fin de siècle explored the symbolic potential of color. For the Nabis, including

138
See Kalba, “Michel-Eugène Chevreul, Color, and the Dangers of Excessive Variety,” in Color in the
Age of Impressionism, 15-40.
139
See Paul Signac, “From Eugène Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism,” trans. Sabine Jaccaud, in Art in
Theory, 1815-1900: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, eds. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, with Jason
Gaiger, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 978-985.
82
Maurice Denis, Édouard Vuillard, and Pierre Bonnard, art could no longer be simply a visual
sensation recorded or copied exactly. The Nabis were Symbolists, literary, artistic, and musical
artists who turned inward and used their own feelings as the subject matter of their art. Inspired
by Paul Gauguin and his teaching that art was expressive above all, the Nabis explored
imagination as key to their practice.
140
Unconstrained by the need to portray scenes
naturalistically, they explored color, using muted and soft tones, as part of a new visual language
for communicating an interior state.
Printmaking, and color lithography in particular, attracted avant-garde painters as another
medium through which to explore color. In part inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints,
which had begun to circulate in Paris in the 1860s following Japan’s opening to the West in
1854, artists took up lithography because it offered new ways to explore flatness, distillation of
form, and color.
141
[Figure 2.11] The medium also appealed to them because of its lucrative and
democratic nature. Through color lithography, artists could create multiple copies of original
drawings and circulate them to a wider audience. The graphic arts also served as a means to
circulate their names and strengthen their reputations in a newly emerging art market outside of
the formal structure of the Salon. Encouraged in large part by art dealers and publishers such as

140
See Maurice Denis, Théories, 1890-1910, du symbolisme et de Gauguin vers un nouvel ordre
Classique, 4
th
ed. (Paris: L. Rouart et J. Watelin, 1920).
141
Dealer Siegfried Bing is widely credited for the spread and insatiable interest in Japanese arts and
crafts (known as japonisme) in late nineteenth-century France. Bing’s 1890 Exposition de la gravure
japonaise at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris was equally significant for fostering interest in ukiyo-e
prints. Bing presented the history of Japanese prints from roughly 1600 to 1860, and viewers had the
opportunity to see 725 ukiyo-e prints and 428 illustrated books from his own collection and those of other
Japanese print enthusiasts. Although scholars have seen this exhibition as a key site for japonisme, it is
equally significant for its contribution to the launch of original color printmaking in France in the 1890s.
See Colta Feller Ives, The Great Wave: The Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints (New
York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974); Gabriel Weisberg, Japonisme: Japanese Influence on French
Art, 1854-1910 (Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1975); Helen Burnham, Looking East:
Western Artists and the Lure of Japan (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2014); Gabriel Weisberg,
ed., Journal of Japonisme 1, no. 1 (2016).
83
Ambroise V ollard, these artists found alternative venues and a novel medium for expression in
color lithography.
Unlike Chéret, who was a trained lithographer, most avant-garde artists making color
lithographs lacked expertise and instead worked with master printers who specialized in color
printing and the material of color ink. As discussed in chapter one, as chromolithography became
increasingly ubiquitous, printers were trained as chromistes and essayeurs, two roles that were
devoted entirely to color printing, including color separation, ink mixing, and color trial proof
printing. These printers were expert colorists; they were extensively trained in color mixing and
color matching. Essayeurs in particular worked closely with artists on selecting, experimenting
with, and deciding upon color for their prints. Once the printers and artists determined the correct
colors and color order, the remainder of the printing process was left in the hands of the printer.
Lithography in fact attracted artists particularly because of the possibilities it afforded them
to work in printmaking without mastery of printing techniques. By turning the more complex
aspects of the process over to a professional printer, however, artists also relinquished some
control over the artistic process. Although they worked freely with color as a material in their
painting and drawing practice—purchasing, mixing, and applying oil paints, watercolors, and
pastels—in color lithography, the application of color ink fell squarely in the printer’s domain.
Auguste Clot excelled in color printing, having trained and specialized in this area during
his years at Lemercier, and his mastery of color drew artists to work with him specifically. As
letters illustrate, artists relied on his skill and expertise in color, welcomed his input on the
selection of colors, and solicited his advice on composition, knowing that he grasped better than
they how colors would look when eventually printed. Although artists started with their drawings
on stone and their ideas regarding color—sometimes as a model or sketch—they then worked
84
closely with Clot to transform their artistic ideas into a material, printed form. Clot was thus
involved not only in the manual labor of producing color as a material, but also in the intellectual
and aesthetic process. In other words, Clot actively contributed to the conception of color.
Although Clot’s name never appeared in the form of a signature alongside that of the artist, the
printer’s hand is recognizable in color itself.

The Printer’s Expertise with Color Ink
Clot’s expertise in working with artists on original art prints was based on his considerable
training and skill in color printing and with the material of color ink. When Clot opened his
atelier, he worked exclusively on art lithographs and primarily in color. His reputation as a
skilled printer attracted many artists to his workshop where they relied on his expertise working
with color. Clot worked with artists to conceive of and imagine with them the translation of their
ideas into print. In painting, an artist’s aesthetic ideas, choices, and actions are immediately
visible to him on the canvas; in contrast, printmaking involves a long delay between the initial
steps and the final image. The transformation of an idea into a final print was a particularly
drawn out process in printmaking—long, labor intensive, and involving numerous steps. Even
after an artist chose a set of colors or worked with the printer to determine the desired colors and
the best order for printing, many steps remained, including preparing the various stones, inking
the press, and printing trial proofs. In the preparation process, then, the printer guided the artist
by suggesting certain colors and pointing out changes that might occur when the ink was printed
onto paper. Whereas an artist relatively unfamiliar with the intricacies of the lithographic process
might not be able to envision the final result, Clot, much more experienced in the medium,
would have a better sense of the final outcome.
85
Clot’s expertise and experience with color lithographic ink was an essential component of
his collaborative practice because the artist did not handle the material of color. Before Clot
began work on a project with an artist, he had already made important aesthetic choices in
purchasing ink to stock his atelier. As the advertisement material from this period shows, the
options offered by manufacturers were vast; in turn, printers developed expertise in a wide range
of colors, ink textures, and opacities in order to best select inks to stock their ateliers. The printer
exercised considerable skill in choosing which inks to buy. Of twenty different blues, how did
the printer choose which handful to purchase for the atelier? Over time, Clot must have
developed preferences for inks by certain manufacturers based on their texture, consistency, and
shade, also keeping in mind how well they interacted with certain types of paper. Furthermore,
when the printer made his purchase, he operated as a liaison to the trade world to which the artist
was unlikely to have been connected. Choosing the best ink required an intimate knowledge of
the printmaking process that only professional printers possessed. And like the other aspects of
color printmaking, choosing ink was a skill developed and honed after working for years as a
color printer in lithography.
After stocking his atelier, Clot dexterously handled color ink during the printmaking
process. When it came time to ink the stones, which on their surfaces contained an artist’s
composition, Clot first prepared the color by mixing various inks together to achieve the desired
tone based on the artist’s wishes. In the process of color mixing, texture and consistency could
also be adjusted by adding varnish. When making an oil painting, artists mixed, adjusted, or
painted over oil paint directly in the palette or on the canvas; these painters understood oil paints’
properties, potentials, and limitations. In the printer’s atelier, however, they yielded control of the
material of color. It was the printer, not the artist, who handled the color ink. It is unlikely that
86
even artists committed to understanding color lithography, such as Lautrec, would have been
skilled at this task. Color ink used in printing has its own properties and the colors mix together
in a different way from oil paint. Thus, the artist entrusted the printer with the task of preparing
color and adjusting it through extensive discussion and trial and error.
Seeing and understanding what artists wished to achieve, Clot guided them during the
long-term production of the print. The printer worked with the artist to choose and then mix
individual shades of color to ink the stones; but because a print was pulled multiple times over
different stones, colors layered on the surface of the page to create new colors, tones, and shades.
Although they possessed strong ideas regarding the color they wished to achieve, artists working
in lithography nevertheless often had trouble imagining the ways that color would layer, or
“play,” on paper. Clot assisted artists by explaining the potential optical effect of layered colors
and by advising them on the order in which to print the colors.
142
Clot’s practice of guiding
artists indicates his understanding of their experimentation and his ability to envision alongside
them what they intended to achieve. Although their work benefited from the printer’s technical
skill, artists flocked to Clot’s atelier to work with him as a collaborative printer, welcoming his
intellectual involvement in the conception of color.

The Elevation of Color Lithography to Art
In his 1898 book, La Lithographie originale en couleurs, art critic André Mellerio wrote an
entry on Clot: “The color printer at the forefront now is certainly Clot…His flaw would be not
lack of skill, but rather a tendency to substitute his judgment for that of the artists when their

142
Various printmakers assisted me in my understanding of the role of the printer specifically in regard to
color. In particular I thank Christian Bramsen and his colleagues at the Atelier Clot, Bramsen & Georges
as well as Jules Maeght and his colleagues at the Imprimerie ARTE for generously inviting me into their
print shops in Paris and for answering my numerous questions.
87
personality is not strong or assertive.”
143
Mellerio’s observation not only indicates the printer’s
valuable contribution to the prints pulled in his atelier, but also signals the apparent risk of
working with someone so capable and confident in his skills. Evidently artists and publishers
remained undeterred, welcoming Clot’s expertise as well as his judgement first at Lemercier and
later in his own practice. He developed a reputation as a gifted printer of chromolithography at
Lemercier, and his status propelled his career as a printer of original artist prints after he left the
large firm. Artists Odilon Redon and Henri Fantin-Latour followed him from Lemercier to his
own shop. The dealer Ambroise V ollard also began working with Clot soon after opening his art
gallery in 1893; Clot printed nearly all of the limited edition color lithographs that V ollard
published by artists he represented until the dealer’s death in 1939.
144
Other clients included
important print publishers of this period such as André Marty and Gustave Pellet, who
commissioned Clot to print lithographs for albums, books, and journals.
Art critics at the time also recognized his skills and role in the development of the original
color lithograph, a category of art that critics were in the process of defining and codifying
through their writing. One of the most vocal critics regarding original color lithographs, Mellerio
penned numerous texts on the burgeoning art form, including his 1898 book devoted entirely to
the subject. Clot was one of the essayeurs, or trial proof printers, Mellerio includes in a section

143
See André Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, trans. Margaret Needham, in The Color Revolution:
Color Lithography in France, 1890-1900, eds. Phillip Dennis Cate and Sinclair Hamilton Hitchings (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University press, 1978), 91.
144
While it was not unusual for a publisher to work closely with a particular printer, the length of time
during which Vollard and Clot, and later his son André, worked together is notable. Early on Vollard
asked Clot to print exclusively for him, an offer that the lithographer refused. Perhaps in an attempt to cut
costs, Vollard considered installing a lithography press in his gallery space. The dealer must have realized
that he would find no other printer of Clot’s skill, however, so continued to work with him as an
independent agent for decades. For more on the early business of Clot and Vollard, see Pat Gilmour,
“Cher Monsieur Clot…Auguste Clot and his Role as a Colour Lithographer” in Lasting Impressions:
Lithography as an Art, Pat Gilmour, ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 134-36.
88
focused on printers of original color lithographs. The role of the essayeur in the production of art
prints carried over from commercial printing; the three printers Mellerio mentions—Édouard
Duchatel, Henry Stern, and Clot—all trained and worked at Lemercier or the Imprimerie
Ancourt, another leading commercial print shop of the period. According to Mellerio, only a
limited number of printers possessed the sufficient skill and artistic sensibility to produce
original color lithographs. He includes only these three “principal printers” based on their skill
with color and ability to collaborate with artists making original color lithographs.
145
A master
printer at Lemercier, Duchatel worked closely with Charles Dulac and Jean Veber on color
lithographs and with Eugène Carrière on monochrome lithographs; he also published two
manuals on artistic lithography in 1893 and 1907.
146
Henry Stern worked at Ancourt, where he
printed with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec following the death of Père Cotelle. Although Mellerio
undoubtedly felt Duchatel’s and Stern’s practice was promising, his descriptions of each printer’s
work makes clear that the critic found Clot exceptional. He characterizes Clot as “the color
printer at the forefront” perhaps because of the wide range of avant-garde artists with whom he
worked or due to the fact that Clot, unlike his colleagues, established his own atelier rather than
continue to work in a commercial firm such as Lemercier or Ancourt.
147

Despite the critic’s admiration for printers, and Clot in particular, he is evidently skeptical
of the role of printers more broadly. Mellerio describes the essayeur as knowledgeable, docile,
and well versed in his craft but not imposing; the ideal essayeur is a printer who is highly skilled
as well as deferential.
148
While Mellerio distinguishes an essayeur as far from an “ordinary

145
Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, 91.
146
Édouard Duchatel, Traité de lithographie artistique (Paris: É. Duchatel, 1893); Édouard Duchatel and
Léonce Bénédite, Manuel de lithographie artistique pour l’artiste et l’imprimeur (Paris: É. Duchatel,
1907).
147
Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, 91.
148
Ibid., 90-91.
89
worker” who merely operated the printing press, the critic nevertheless also found it problematic
that Clot at times seemed to assume the role of artist himself. The printer’s expertise, which
enabled the production of these limited edition art prints, could at times simultaneously threaten
their perceived “originality.” Having mastered his craft after years at Lemercier, Clot’s
experience with color ink and color printing—the very quality that attracted artists to his
atelier—was seen by Mellerio as encroaching on the artist’s creative freedom. Elsewhere in La
Lithographie originale en couleurs, Mellerio again comments on this anxiety of the printer’s
overstepping, writing,
…Printers lean toward facsimile…[because] certain of them have done chromolithography
for a long time. The original color print was born only yesterday…The printer thereby
possesses a superiority over the artist, an undeniable material means of emphasizing his
own importance. The more he complicates the printing procedure, the more he points up
the importance of his help. Thus, he is happy to show off his great technical skill…[and]
takes advantage of [artists] to impose his dogmatic knowledge acquired from simple
chromolithography, either by paralyzing the artist with fear at the material obstacles
standing in the way of his inspiration—or, on the contrary, by dazzling the artist with his
completed feats.
149

Mellerio’s anxiety over the printer’s potential imposition of his own will or skill over that of the
artist suggests the critic’s general unease with the close ties between the production of
commercial chromolithography—referred to as “simple chromolithography” and the “facsimile”
to which printers are drawn—and original color lithography. Evidently, the printer, trained and
experienced in commercial printing, played a similar and equally crucial role in the production of
original art prints. To address this perceived threat of the commercial association, Mellerio
attempts to diminish the importance of the printer, describing the printer’s involvement in terms
of a delicate balance. The printer must be sufficiently skilled to aid the artist, he contends, but
not overly confident or pleased with his own skill in the medium or with the material that he

149
Ibid., 93-94.
90
imposes his own will. Mellerio emphasizes that the “role of the printer, without ever encroaching
upon that of the artist, must be to support and help him, overcoming hitches, making the right
suggestion at the right time, based on his ability and his deep knowledge of the craft.”
150

According to Mellerio, the printer must simultaneously support the artist, guide him through the
complex process, offer advice and input, and perform the laborious task of carrying out the
printing of a multi-stone color lithograph. An overly artistic printer risks imposing his will on an
artist unfamiliar with the medium, but a printer lacking technical skill would not sufficiently
facilitate the artist’s creative work. In other words, the printer continues to perform a role he
learned in the context of commercial chromolithography, but here Mellerio recasts his
involvement; he relegates the printer to the role of the technician or assistant in his attempt to
elevate the artist above the printer and secure unambiguously the artist’s presumably superior
position with regard to creativity in the project. The critic’s description of a successful printer,
however, in fact highlights the inherent connection between art printing and commercial printing
and the printer’s critical and collaborative role in the process of making original color
lithographs. Mellerio’s careful attention to the printer’s role reveals his unease with—and
attempts to veil—the ways in which the techniques for producing art prints emerged from and
remained closely tied to industrial practices.
For both personal as well as professional reasons, the critic would have wished to
distinguish and elevate art prints from commercial lithographs produced in very similar ways.
Mellerio had a vested interest in converting original color lithography—essentially a
combination of industrial practices and materials—into an art form. He had personal ties to many
of the artists who were making art prints at the time. He was friends with the Nabis artists,

150
Ibid., 90-91.
91
including Maurice Denis who painted a portrait of his family in 1897. [Figure 2.12] Mellerio also
worked with Pierre Bonnard on several occasions. In 1898, the artist designed the birth
announcement for Mellerio’s child, a lithograph printed by Clot. [Figure 2.13] In 1897, Bonnard
designed the cover for the journal Mellerio directed, L’Estampe et l’affiche as well as the cover
and frontispiece for La Lithographie originale en couleurs in 1898. [Figure 2.14 and 2.15]
Mellerio was a particularly close friend of Redon, whom he championed. He researched the
artist’s work and corresponded with him extensively.
151
Mellerio also completed numerous
publications about the artist, including a catalogue of Redon’s work in 1913 and another in
1923.
152
Furthermore, Mellerio collected the work of many of the artists about whom he wrote.
His investment in elevating the lithographs of these artists and friends to the realm of art thus
directly impacted the significance of his own work as well as the monetary value of the objects
in his collection. We therefore might read and understand his writing about original color
lithographs through the lens of his intellectual and financial interests and investments. In La
Lithographie originale en couleurs, the critic is especially attentive to issues of production, in
particular the role of the printer and the space in which art prints should be printed. Mellerio’s
focus on the production of original color lithographs distinguishes his criticism from that of his
contemporaries. His inclusion of a section devoted to the role of printers of original color
lithographs indicates that the critic, perhaps unlike some of his colleagues, possessed a
familiarity with the intricacies of the printing process.
Other critics of the period such as Roger Marx sought to elevate the original art print above
its commercial counterpart by underscoring the former’s originality of design and the perceived

151
André Mellerio Papers, 1867-1943, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries,
The Art Institute of Chicago, 1991.2.
152
André Mellerio, Odilon Redon (Paris: Secretariat, 1913); André Mellerio, Odilon Redon: Peintre,
dessinateur et graveur (Paris: Henri Floury, 1923).
92
artistic inferiority of the latter. In his 1893 preface for André Marty’s L'Estampe originale, Marx
argues for the original art print’s status as an artwork because of the original idea behind its
creation. His words echo the way that more recent scholars have understood artists’ attraction to
the medium. Lithography permitted an artist to draw directly on the stone and to mark the
surface freely with an autographic gesture while the remaining elements of the printing process
could then be handed over to a professional printer. The artist’s gesture, according to Marx, gave
the viewer access to the artist’s inner feelings and impulses. Writing a preface to an album of
prints made through various processes (woodcut, etching, and lithography), Marx does not delve
deeply into the specifics of color lithography, the focal point of some of his contemporaries.
Color lithography and the medium’s specific traits proved more central to the criticism of
Ernest Maindron, a collector, archivist, and historian of the poster.
153
Maindron wrote numerous
publications specifically on the chromolithographic poster, celebrating its everyday, urban, and
ephemeral qualities.
154
He noted the poster’s aesthetic innovations—such as its flattened
compositions and large swaths of color—and its democratic nature, observing how posters
transformed the streets of Paris into a museum for its inhabitants. A champion of Jules Chéret,
Maindron highlighted the artist’s simplicity of design and his expert use of color, writing,
No one before him had made it so clear that the illustrated poster should stand out not only
for the general appearance of the coloring, but also for the elegance of the lines and the
simplicity of the composition. It is by these qualities that [the poster] stands out as a piece
of art and that it deserves the attention of dilettantes. For color, and this is the most
important point, Mr. Chéret always arrives at decorative effects of great power; he
proceeds in masses, with the help of vigorous oppositions skillfully harmonized by

153
Art historians have drawn on Maindron’s writing and collecting practices as evidence of the way in
which critics sought to elevate lithography to the level of art. Ruth Iskin reads Maindron’s interest in
chromolithography through his practice of collecting and categorizing posters. He found the poster’s
urban nature significant and wrote about how posters transformed the streets of Paris into a museum for
the public. He saw contemporary posters as an archive of French life for future historians. See Iskin, The
Poster, 269.
154
Ernest Maindron, “Les affiches illustrées (deuxième et dernier article),” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 330,
per. 2 (December 1884): 535-47.
93
graduated backgrounds of a delicate color. These backgrounds, obtained by affixing
different tones that join and merge in the middle of the design, increase its value and ensure
its effect from a distance.
155

According to Maindron, Chéret stood out from his fellow poster designers because of the manner
in which he used color in his compositions. The artist understood lithography’s technical
possibilities, juxtaposing and layering large areas of color to create powerful effects. Maindron
found value in how well-suited Chéret’s designs were to their medium and function—to attract
the eye of the viewer through original and exciting compositions. Critic Henri Béraldi also noted
Chéret’s work in his entry on the artist in his extensive publication Les Graveurs du XIXe siècle;
he too emphasized the simplicity of Chéret’s designs and his use of color.
156
Both Maindron and
Béraldi commend Chéret for his ability to utilize lithographic techniques to produce effective and
compelling chromolithographs. In line with Marx, these writers praise the skilled manner with
which Chéret marshals the artistic potential of the medium and contend that the originality of his
designs elevate his posters—and others of a similarly innovative aesthetic—to the realm of art.
Furthermore, although his commercial posters were industrially produced, Chéret, a trained
lithographer, was nevertheless involved in all aspects of conception and production, as both the
designer and printer of his own work. All of the choices regarding color and composition were
made by him. The originality of his work could not, therefore, be threatened by the expert hand
and involvement of a master printer. This condition was not the case with many of the works
featured in Mellerio’s book.
Period critics and historians of color lithography also collected the materials about which
they wrote. Their collecting practices and the narratives they constructed have shaped the
historiography regarding color lithographs from this period, one that continues to focus on their

155
Maindron, “Les affiches illustrées,” 546.
156
See Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism, 164.
94
originality and their ties to the oeuvre of the artists who designed them. More recent scholars
also focus on these aspects of the color art lithograph, overlooking the important role of the
printer in the complex production of the prints. A re-examination of Mellerio’s important 1898
text helps to reframe these artworks and trouble the binaries through which they continue to be
understood. While all the critics discussed here focused on artists’ creations of their designs,
Mellerio, aware of the intricacies of the printing process, knew all too well that that conception
could not be so easily distinguished from production in original color lithography because artists
relied heavily on the printer who in turn controlled color, a crucial element of their artistic
practice. Mellerio’s unease about the printer and his attempt to define the printer’s ambiguous
role illuminates the significant and inherently collaborative role that the printer played in the
production of these works.

Collaboration in Color
While Mellerio claims that the printer of original color lithographs must be docile and
accommodating, a closer look at the collaborative work between printer and artist in the space of
the atelier and in the annotations of color trial proofs reveals that communication was in fact
bidirectional; the production of color was only possible through the close collaboration of printer
and artist. Color in lithography is simultaneously a material—color ink—manipulated and
controlled by the printer as well as a means for the artist’s expression. Because many of the
artists working with Clot made chromatic experimentation a central preoccupation of their
artistic practice, the colors they used in models and sketches did not always mirror their final
selections; they often adjusted color during the trial proof process depending on how colors
looked alongside each other or layered. Clot, more experienced and skilled with color ink,
95
worked closely with them and played an active role in this process by making initial selections,
offering guidance, and helping realize the final color palette. Color was thus neither solely a
material nor a conceptual concern but represented instead the meeting of two minds and the
convergence of art and industry. Clot negotiated this intersection in his role as a collaborative
printer, participating in the conception as well as the production of color.
The collaborative work of making color lithographs undertaken by printer and artist
contributed to their perception as artworks. It was Clot’s labor and renowned skill with color that
guaranteed the high quality of their production and distinguished them from their commercial
counterparts, which were understood to have been printed by machines on a mass scale without
the care of a devoted printer. Critics such as Mellerio saw Clot’s presence as ensuring that artists
had the expert guidance necessary to achieve their highest caliber work—in this case, the avant-
garde experimentation with color that signaled the originality of their designs. Clot’s perceived
commitment to working closely and painstakingly with artists on their projects in his atelier or
through annotated trial proofs signaled to critics, publishers, and collectors that artists had, in
their minds, the proper context and assistance to make original artworks. In other words,
although scholars have long associated the artistic status of these color lithographs with the
presence of the artist, it was in fact Clot’s involvement—his skill as well as his judgement—
particularly as related to color that ensured the prints’ elevation above commercial
chromolithographs to the realm of art.

Clot’s Atelier
When possible, much of the collaboration between printer and artist took place in the
physical space of the printer’s workshop, where artists worked alongside Clot on the production
96
of color. Notes sent by artists to Clot expressed a need or desire to visit his atelier to work with
him. In one letter, artist Maurice Eliot, sick at home and unable to visit, provided feedback for a
proof pulled by Clot. After a lengthy discussion of changes to colors that he wished to see, Eliot
concluded, “However wait because I would tell you better by voice all the observations that I can
only indicate to you by letter.”
157
Many artists spent hours, even days in the atelier working with
Clot. Some sent Clot short and terse notes, merely letting him know the date and time that they
would visit him in the atelier. For instance, Pierre Bonnard wrote to Clot in December 1899, “Do
you want us to postpone our operations until Friday morning?”
158
Bonnard frequently scheduled
meetings with Clot so his notes typically refer only to logistics and scheduling; their
conversations regarding color would have taken place in person. Some artists sent Clot brief
notes approving a final color or noting one final correction. Édouard Vuillard, for example,
wrote to Clot, “I saw the proofs. That works, but I prefer the yellow of the first proof, higher than
this last…”
159
Vuillard’s note suggests that extensive work had already taken place between
artist and printer in the space of the atelier. The printer’s and artist’s interactions had likely taken
place in person and thus their words exchanged through spoken conversations, rather than
recorded in written form. As a result, little documentation exists to recreate such encounters.
Visual depictions, verbal descriptions, references in letters, and the steps of the printmaking
process nevertheless create an impression of the collaborative interweaving of mental and
physical work that took place in Clot’s atelier, including direct dialogue and visualization of the
design, as well as inking of the plates and turning of the press.
160

157
Maurice Eliot to Clot, 31 Jan. 1898, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
158
Pierre Bonnard to Clot, Dec. 1899, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
159
Édouard Vuillard to Clot, undated, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
160
In addition to exploring the collaborative relationship between the printer and the artist through images
and writing found through my archival research, I developed a methodology to explore firsthand the work
of printers. I supplemented and expanded my study by spending time in active print shops in Paris, such
97
Contemporary critics, artists, and publishers recognized the small size and intimate
setting of the print atelier as factors that significantly contributed to the printer’s and artist’s one-
on-one relationship. In La Lithographie originale en couleurs, Mellerio is detailed in his
description of a space that would allow for a close working relationship between printer and
artist. He writes,
In comparison with the big printing factories…[the printer’s] more modest shop…would
become a haven. It would be a friendly place for meetings where…close and much
needed collaboration between the artists and printer would be reached by suggestion and
agreement. They would thus overcome the difficulties of the craft at the same time that
the liberated inspiration would assert itself more directly and intensely.
161

Mellerio compares the size of “grands usines,” or large factories, similar to Lemercier, to a
smaller, more modest space in which to produce original color lithographs.
162
Mellerio locates
the burgeoning art form of the artistic color lithograph within the small, intimate space of the
atelier, distinguishing it from the bustling, overwhelming setting of the large print firm, from
which commercial chromolithographs emerged. According to Mellerio, the setting would help
determine the type and degree of collaboration, artistic process, experimentation, and material
tinkering required to make original prints. Notably, Mellerio does not call the printer’s space an
“imprimerie,” or print shop, but rather an “officine,” referring to a sort of pharmacist’s
laboratory in which scientific study is carried out.
163
His description thus creates a sense that this

as the Atelier Clot, Bramsen, & Georges, Imprimerie ARTE, and Idem Paris. At each shop, contemporary
printmakers demonstrated their practice and answered my many questions, reframing and enriching my
archival work. Part of my methodology also involved learning some of the techniques myself through
printmaking courses I took at City College San Francisco and Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA. In these
courses, I gained a deeper understanding of the manual labor and technical skill required in printmaking.
My exploration of process and materials in the print shop made clear the importance of making and
makers to the study of art history.
161
Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, 91.
162
Ibid.
163
For several nineteenth-century definitions of the term, see Centre national de ressources textuelles et
lexicales, s.v., “officine,” accessed August 15, 2020, https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/officine.
98
is a space in which both artistic and industrial—even scientific, given that lithography is a
chemical process—work take place simultaneously. Loys Delteil’s lithograph of Clot at work
contributes to this idea of the printer’s so-called “officine.” [Figure 1.12] Delteil depicts a small
space in which Clot stands at his press, in the midst of rolling ink by hand over the lithographic
stone, surrounded by the tools, machines, and materials of his trade. The setting at once evokes
an artist’s tranquil atelier, with light streaming in from large windows, while the press is
reminiscent of a shop or laboratory countertop. The printer is at work on the more technical
aspects of printmaking, although his portrayal is reminiscent of an artist at work in his studio.
The artist portrays the printer’s space as a site in which numerous types of work, both artistic and
technical, coincide and occur simultaneously and fluidly.
Mellerio contends that the atelier also serves as an easily-accessible “asile”—a haven or
sanctuary—implying a safe and welcoming space in which artists would feel comfortable and
enjoy working. This space would ideally serve as a meeting point, where artists would visit to
speak and work with the printer and where they might see their friends and colleagues. For
example, in his journal the Neo-Impressionist Paul Signac refers to encountering the Nabi artist
Maurice Denis at Clot’s atelier.
164
Whether or not they physically crossed paths with the printer’s
other clients, artists also likely saw their colleagues’ work in progress in Clot’s space; coming
across the work of another artist might have spurred their imagination and inspired them to
explore different techniques. Because of these intersections and exchanges, Mellerio is able to
further distinguish Clot’s atelier from the commercial space of Lemercier, presenting the former
as a site for the development and growth of an emerging artistic movement in color lithography.

164
Published excerpts from Signac’s journal state that he met Maurice Denis “at the printer’s.” See Pat
Gilmour, “New Light on Paul Signac’s Color Lithographs,” Burlington Magazine 132 (1990), 271-75.
99
Mellerio also identifies the small setting of the atelier as significant in cultivating the
perceived intimate working relationship between printer and artist. Uneasy with the printer’s
considerable role, Mellerio contends that the balance between them would be reached through
“suggestion” and “agreement”—through discussion, reaction, and compromise. Although
Mellerio distinguishes the “difficulties of the craft,” meaning the technical work of
chromolithography, from the “liberated inspiration” of the artistic process, he does not assign
one aspect to each participant. Rather, he asserts that through their collaboration, the artist and
printer would together succeed in the production of high-quality original color lithographs.
The small setting of Clot’s workshop met the criteria laid out by Mellerio, making it the
ideal setting for collaborative work. Clot was noteworthy in his opening of a small-scale firm at
the end of the nineteenth century; other well-known printers from this period primarily worked at
larger firms. Perhaps this is why Mellerio names Clot as the most skilled printer of this period,
rather than Édouard Duchatel or Henry Stern who worked at the larger firms Lemercier and
Ancourt, respectively.
165
As explored in chapter one, Clot’s atelier added an association of craft
with the production of his prints, distinguishing them from prints made in large-scale factories.
In addition to its perceived alignment with artisanal, manual work, the printer’s atelier also came
to be recognized by critics, publishers, and artists as a space that fostered collaboration. Indeed,
Bonnard’s sketch of Clot’s atelier not only portrays the printer at work, but also depicts the close
collaborative working relationship between printer and artist. [Figure 1.11] Clot operates the
press with both hands, moving the stone through after wetting and inking its surface. Bonnard
sits to Clot’s side, making adjustments to the stone based on the trial proof hanging in front of
him. Bonnard shows his own active involvement in the printing process, and his drawing

165
Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, 91.
100
suggests a prolonged process of trial and error that would have stretched over many hours in the
atelier.
The working relationship between artist and printer complicates the typical hierarchy of a
workshop; in Clot’s space, power and control constantly shifted between players. In The
Craftsman, sociologist Richard Sennett offers a theory of the workshop that serves as a
productive point of departure for an analysis of Clot’s print shop. Sennett’s study follows the
history of how workshops addressed, eschewed, or balanced the tensions between authority and
autonomy. Sennett takes seriously the craftsman’s workshop as a social space in which power
dynamics between masters and apprentices play out.
166
He defines the workshop as “a productive
space in which people deal face-to-face with issues of authority.”
167
His definition refers both to
the social hierarchy within the workshop as well as the skills that determine who oversees the
workshop. The workshop’s master possesses the highest skill, and thus the “right to
command.”
168
Another definition Sennett proposes as crucial to understanding the operations of
a workshop is that of autonomy, defined as “self-sufficing work conducted without the
interference of another.”
169
Because craft skill is typically passed on through hands-on and in-
person training, craftsmanship depends on the existence of a figure superior in proficiency and
knowledge who instructs others and generally maintains a high standard of quality. As Sennett
notes, the workshop is a site of inequalities of skill and experience, an issue that unfolds in the
print atelier as well.

166
Richard Sennett, “The Workshop,” in The Craftsman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 53-
80.
167
Ibid., 54.
168
Ibid.
169
Ibid.
101
The social dynamics and tensions Sennett describes apply to the relations between the
various workers who participated in the division of labor in large-scale print shops such as
Lemercier, where the most skilled and experienced workers rose to the top of the labor hierarchy.
The workings of the atelier Clot, however, complicate Sennett’s analysis of the structures of a
traditional workshop. Besides Clot’s son and assistant, who would have fallen into the more
traditional apprentice role, artists mostly frequently worked with Clot as client-partners. Many
letters indicate that the printer’s atelier served as the space in which artists worked closely with
the printer to correct or retouch their drawings on the stone, to participate in the trial proof
process, and to give approval with the notation of bon à tirer.
The dynamic between artist and printer expands Sennett’s understanding of the practices
that take place within a workshop setting. On the one hand, the inequality of skill and expertise
undoubtedly gave Clot authority and agency, situating him as the workshop’s master printer who
possessed technical knowledge and experience superior to that of the artists with whom he
worked. Yet, the printer did not hold the autonomy described by Sennett, since the artist—the
printer’s client—certainly interfered with the master printer’s work. On the other hand, the
artists, although clients of the printer, did not merely order a service to be carried out. Rather, the
majority of artists participated in the production process, though with varying degrees of
involvement, guided and instructed by Clot.
Entries from Paul Signac’s unpublished journal offer insight into the interaction between
Clot and artists in the space of his atelier. In an entry dated January 18, 1897, Signac writes,
At Clot’s lithographic print shop. He seems to know his business well and saw
immediately what I wanted. He called me two or three times to order, precisely at times
when I deviated from what, even from my point of view, I should have done. He
understands very well that I want pure, divided and vibrant shades.
170

170
Signac, journal entry, 18 Jan. 1897, Journal inédit de Paul Signac (1849-1910), Archives Signac, Paris.
102

Signac’s entry illuminates the nuanced and sometimes ambiguous working relationship between
printer and artist. Signac evidently arrived with an idea of the artwork he wished to create with
Clot, then worked to realize this project through exchange with the printer. Signac notes that Clot
understood his artistic vision instantly, suggesting that in addition to technical skill, the printer
also possessed an immediate understanding of the avant-garde ideas about color that Signac
wished to work through in lithography. As they began to work together, Clot, more experienced
and expert in lithography, guided the artist through the process, correcting him and redirecting
him toward the path that would best enable the realization of what Signac hoped to achieve.
Because of Clot’s understanding, Signac seems grateful for and inspired by this guidance. Their
productive work was built on mutual understanding and a shared vision of “pure, divided, and
vibrant shades,” constant dialogue, and close collaboration.
Signac also mentions this process of being guided by the printer in another entry from
February 6, 1897, in which he describes the experience of seeing the trial proof for the first time
and again alludes to the success of his collaboration with Clot:
I finally have a first proof of my litho. The first impression is good. It is really a joyful
reward and a good surprise to see reproduced in beautiful colors, all this work that we
have done sadly in black. It doesn’t have the chromo look at all and does a very good job
with the hazy, wrapped atmosphere of my painting—while still being a print. It looks
nothing like my litho that Taillardat pulled. It’s that he is a worker, excellent it is true, in
the twist of the hand, but without taste, while Clot is an artist who sees very well what we
want to know, knows how to guide you, and of his own free will can decide which shades
would be most suitable. Certainly the ones he chose are, in my opinion, the ones that do
the best; and among the various states, with different effects, the one he likes best is also
the one I prefer.
171

Signac’s first comment reiterates the difficulty artists faced in working in black crayon on
sections to be eventually inked in color as well as the challenge of waiting for an extended period

171
Signac, journal entry, 6 Feb. 1897, Journal inédit de Paul Signac (1849-1910), Archives Signac, Paris.
103
before seeing the results of their work. Upon finally seeing the first proof, Signac appears
delighted by the result of his collaboration with Clot. Indeed, Signac compares Clot to another
printer, Taillardat, with whom Signac prepared proofs around 1896 for his lithograph Au temps
d’Harmonie, who was technically gifted, but merely a “worker.”
172
By contrast, Signac refers to
Clot as an “artist” who seems to possess a painter’s eye and understanding; because of this
shared vision, he can guide a painter such as Signac toward what the artist hopes to accomplish
in print. Furthermore, Signac observes Clot’s creativity and subjective taste in his selection of
colors. According to the painter, when Clot made the selection of color himself, his choices were
not only “the best” but also in line with the painter’s preferences. In other words, Clot’s skill and
knowledge of color enabled him to predict what would best suit the painter’s whim and also what
would best enhance the aesthetic quality of the final print. Indeed, Signac’s comment regarding
the potential of color lithography to look essentially like painting suggests that the use and
potential of color—in this case the creation of atmosphere as opposed to color blocks—is at the
crux of the difference between his art prints and earlier chromolithographs. Both the vibrancy
and application of pure color as well as the printer’s creative ability are key factors that
distinguish the original color lithograph from its commercial counterparts. A color print’s
approximation of painting is especially possible if printed by an artist, a designation Signac gives
to Clot.
Signac’s journal entries illustrate the singular nature of Clot’s involvement in the
production of color. In a letter from Signac to his fellow Neo-Impressionist Henri-Edmond Cross
on February 10, 1897, he writes, “This printer is very intelligent and an artist. He saw very well
what I wanted to achieve and guided me perfectly. You should take advantage of your stay in

172
The lithographer Taillardat’s first name remains unknown. Gilmour mentions that Au temps
d’Harmonie was printed by Tailliardat c. 1896. See Gilmour, “Signac’s Color Lithographs,” 275.
104
Paris to make a color litho through this process. You will succeed perfectly.”
173
To Signac and
his fellow avant-garde artists, Clot’s artistic sensibility—what they considered Clot’s painterly
eye—helped convince them of the value of their work in color lithography and of the elevated
status of their art prints over commercial reproductions.
The interdependent nature of the relationship between artist and printer is difficult to
characterize. As a client, the artist oversaw the printer’s work, but also relied completely on the
printer’s skill, expertise, and guidance. The printer carried out the making of a product for the
artist, but because of the nature of the printing process, the printer was in fact making with the
artist. In writing and imagery, critics and artists presented the working relationship between
artists and printers as fluid and flexible. The prints they crafted together were not only the
products of their shared labor but were also presented as a residue of how they thought,
imagined, and created together as artists invested in the aesthetic potential of color print. Clot
was thus simultaneously a valuable and problematic figure in the narrative then being written
about the originality of these artworks. Aware of the collaboration inherent in color lithography,
but unwilling or unable to define Clot’s ambiguous role, period critics oscillated between
stressing Clot’s threat to the perceived originality of these color lithographs and framing his
involvement as an important contribution that enabled artists to achieve their greatest artistic
potential in the medium.

Collaborative Work in Annotated Trial Proofs
Signac evidently found the experience of working together in Clot’s atelier rewarding,
but like other artists, he sometimes had to rely on letters and trial proofs to communicate with

173
Signac to Henri Edmond Cross, 10 Feb. 1897, Archives Signac, Paris.
105
Clot regarding color. Annotated trial proofs are a site of the shared engagement of artist and
printer in the production of color. Often using a drawing produced by the artist as a color guide,
Clot prepared ink, inked the artist’s stone, and printed colors. In this transformation of an artist’s
sketch into the lithographic print, Clot made initial aesthetic choices regarding color. Upon
receiving and reviewing the trial proof, the artist would then typically annotate it by hand,
indicating the changes he wished to see. The artist’s notes were not corrections of mistakes made
by the printer; rather they were the artist’s response and reaction to previous decisions that both
had made. Through this exchange, the artist and the printer experimented with, worked out, and
ultimately agreed upon color, the key element in their print process.
Annotations on proofs illustrate the printer’s and the artists’ wide variety of working
methods, which could depend on the stage in the printmaking process or on the type of
involvement the artist wished from the printer. The type of comments might correspond to a
particular moment in the printing process; an early proof might be carpeted with handwritten
scribbles, whereas a final proof might display only one or two sparse comments and the artist’s
sign off—bon à tirer—approving a print for editioning. Some artists were meticulous and precise
in their feedback, blanketing the trial proof with notes, arrows, boxes, and other indications of
alterations to color or composition. Others welcomed the exchange with the printer and Clot’s
creative input, providing vague and subjective directions that left room for the printer to make
aesthetic decisions. Still others chose not to include many comments, asking the printer to match
the color of the models they provided as closely as possible and generally leaving decisions
regarding color in the hands of the printer.
Mailed back and forth, letters and annotated trial proofs conveyed to Clot artists’
reactions to his selections, questions, corrections, and desired alterations. The letters and
106
annotations emerged from a combination of physical and mental labor performed by both artist
and printer. The hand of the printer in the form of color became intertwined with the handwritten
notes of the artist; the mental work of both—imagining, visualizing, experimenting—is evident
in the artist’s composition and in the printer’s initial choice of color.
Trial proofs sent by Signac to Clot elucidate the collaborative endeavor of crafting color
through written exchange. In his trial proof for Les Bateaux (1897-1898), Signac fastidiously
noted specific changes to be made by Clot, covering the proof—in addition to explicit and
detailed handwritten notes—with arrows, boxes, and outlines to illustrate changes to certain
areas of the print’s surface. [Figure 2.16] His prints are made up of dots—called taches, or
marks—of pure color, and the artist’s trial proof annotations all pertain to color corrections,
including adjustments to the hue of specific colors and to the particular placement of color dots.
Indeed, Signac’s Divisionist theory explored in his painting practice was based on the idea of the
juxtaposition of pure color. Methodical and efficient, Signac conveyed his optical experience
through what he took to be the “objective” and “scientific” process of pointillism, transforming
brushstrokes into evenly distributed dots. Signac and his cohort of Neo-Impressionists used this
method to create artworks that conveyed an optical experience and the artist’s vision.
174
As art
historian Michelle Foa notes in her study of Divisionism, Signac’s theory focused on the optical
experience of color above its materiality. While the artist valued the optical mixture of “pure”
colors, he disdained the material aspect of color pigment.
175
In his 1899 book From Eugène
Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, Signac writes that in the Neo-Impressionist technique, “the
optical mixture of small strokes of color methodically laid down one next to the other, does not

174
For more on the Neo-Impressionists and labor, see Kim Grant, All About Process: The Theory and
Discourse of Modern Artistic Labor (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2017), 70-74.
175
Michelle Foa, Georges Seurat: The Art of Vision (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 159-160.
107
leave much room for virtuosity and skill. The painter’s hand has little importance; only his eye
and brain take on a role.”
176
Signac valued, therefore, the reception of color over its production
as a material at the hand of the artist, even if that hand were his own; the artist would have
encouraged and embraced the involvement of another in the material production of color.
Signac’s commitment to the optical experience of color above its material association
perhaps contributed to the artist’s interest in color lithography.
177
For Signac, the printer’s
control over the material of color ink in lithography would not have been a drawback or
complication, as might have been the case with other artists. He was concerned with specificity
of color and color placement, but its application by Clot would have been welcome, perhaps
even intriguing for the artist. Furthermore, from his journal entries, it is clear that Signac valued
Clot’s immediate understanding of the artist’s desire for “pure, divided and vibrant shades.”
Clot’s so-called “painterly eye” impressed Signac, and in general, his methodical application of
color and expertise with the material of color ink made the medium particularly well suited to
Neo-Impressionist theory. Clot’s careful attention to color and immediate comprehension of
Signac’s theory more broadly made it possible, according to the artist’s letters and journals, for
the optical mixture Signac sought to produce in lithography as an alternative to painting.
On annotated trial proofs, Signac reacted to, refined, and adjusted his own ideas about the
optical experience of the print, leaving the material concerns of color in Clot’s capable hands.
His trial proof for Les Bateaux comprises small dots that together form several boats seemingly
hovering in a foggy haze of a vibrantly colored yellow, orange, and pink sky floating above an

176
Signac, From Eugène Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, 981-982.
177
Gilmour looks at Signac’s lithographs in two essays, but she does not explore the medium attracted the
artist in the first place. Rather, her primary concern is dating the artworks. See Gilmour, “Signac’s Color
Lithographs;” Pat Gilmour, “New Light on Signac's Color Lithographs--Again!” Second Impressions:
Modern Prints & Printmakers Reconsidered (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996), 3-
11.
108
equally kaleidoscopic body of water. The majority of Signac’s annotations pertain to the array of
dots that make up the water. Signac draws boxes around specific dots, then draws a line with a
note indicating to Clot whether to “nettoyer,” or clean up an area, “supprimer,” or remove a dot,
or “garnir,” decorate or embellish with another color dot. He makes various references to adding
a second, darker yellow in various parts of the water and on the mast of the ship. Although the
dots that form the water and sky might appear as random color confetti, the artist’s comments
show the importance of specificity and placement of hue to the final work. Another proof, for
Les Andelys (1897), depicts several farmhouses along the water and women washing clothing on
the bank. [Figure 2.17] In innumerable small dots, the water reflects the vibrant hues of houses,
trees, and the sky above. Here again the artist is concerned with the distribution of color in the
water. His notes ask Clot to “lighten these small reflections that are too dark.”
178
Along with the
notes, Signac outlines a segment of water, indicating several “+” marks to specify which dots to
lighten when Clot remixed the ink for the next trial proof. His shorthand is echoed below with
“lighten a lot the blues,” along with another outlined segment of water with “+” marks.
Elsewhere in the proof, the artist indicates specific colors to add to specific areas.
The trial proof was the first time that the artist saw his ideas in lithographic form, and
Signac’s annotations regarding color and composition convey his desire to alter the design that
he himself had proposed. Signac’s choice to change the placement of colors was likely a decision
to adjust the juxtaposition of certain colors, perhaps to better adhere to his theory of optical
mixture. In the trial proof for Les Bateaux, Signac includes color mixes in the margins of the
proof, appearing to search for another color that would work better in the print. One larger swath
has a box around it with the note, “find something like this.”
179
At the base are three different

178
Signac’s annotation reads: “alleger ces petits reflets trop foncé”
179
Signac’s annotation reads: “chercher quelque chose comme cela”
109
colors enclosed in graphite boxes; two boxes are marked with “not this one,” whereas the third
says “this one.”
180
These swatches of color, along with his directions regarding which colors Clot
should mix, suggests the precision of color is paramount to Signac’s practice. In lithography,
however, the printer mediated the trial and error in Signac’s artistic practice.
For an artist such as Signac, committed to color as he was, Clot needed to understand
what Signac envisioned and hoped to achieve. Clot, however, was the first person to make
choices about material color in the proof process. The artist may have indicated a general color
palette for the print in watercolor, pastel, or oil, but Clot needed to translate these colors into
lithographic ink, which had a different texture and opacity. In his initial proof, Clot may have
adjusted the color selection based on his knowledge of how the inks would eventually interact on
the paper when layered on each other. In later trial proofs, Clot had interpreted and incorporated
a previous set of comments from the artist, making additional choices in selecting color.
Although extensive, Signac’s notes nevertheless demonstrate his inherent trust in the
printer’s eye for color; the specificity of the artist’s annotations indicate that he felt confident
Clot could succeed in interpreting these precise, meticulously placed comments. Indeed, in the
first mention of Clot in a journal entry from December 11, 1896, Signac notes, “In the morning
at the printer lithographer Clot’s who invented a new process which gives the color litho, no
longer the disgusting appearance of a chromo in soft and flat shades, but that of a pastel, whose
color lives and shines.”
181
Signac is intrigued and impressed by Clot’s ability to work with color
ink to avoid the “soft” and “flat” tones of cheaply made chromolithographs that the artist clearly
disliked. Signac, like many of his contemporaries, insisted on working with Clot because he felt

180
Signac’s annotation reads: “pas cela” and “cela”
181
Signac, journal entry, 11 Dec. 1896, Journal inédit de Paul Signac (1849-1910), Archives Signac,
Paris.
110
that the printer could translate his aesthetic into lithography by capturing the colors and textures
of his artwork in other media, but without creating a facsimile print that resembled “chromos.”
The “process” Clot invented is likely intended as a comment on the printer’s unique
ability in terms of color mixing and application, skills he in fact developed in the context of
“chromo” production at Lemercier.
182
Although both of the proofs mentioned above are
thoroughly annotated, Signac includes the bon à tirer, approving them and relinquishing his right
to see an additional proof before Clot editioned the entire print run. In the top left of Les Andelys,
the artist writes, “good to pull after all the corrections indicated.”
183
A similar comment adorns
the surface of Les Bateaux; amidst myriad notations, Signac writes, “Good to print…with the
alterations indicated and taking into account these observations.”
184
With these notes, Signac
reveals his confidence in the printer and his assumption that Clot’s choices will enhance the
overall aesthetic quality of his print. By necessity, Signac relied on the help of a printer, as he
had previously in other lithographic projects; but unlike some of those past experiences, which
required the artist to hover over the printer in the workshop to oversee the production of color,
with Clot, Signac could relay his comments and reactions via post, relying on and entrusting the
printer to execute the necessary adjustments. Signac’s written comments reveal his confidence in

182
Several elements of this comment are noteworthy. Signac refers to a process “invented” by Clot. In
terms of inventions, we know that Clot invented a process in which he could take a color drawing done by
an artist on regular, untreated paper (rather than on specially treated transfer paper that many artists
disliked) and from it transfer the image directly onto the stones using a chemical process. Signac,
however, also remarks upon the colors themselves, which would have only been produced by Clot's own
mixing and application of color ink. Signac thus seems to reference Clot’s own ability with color.
Additionally, Signac references pastels, a color material in which he was undoubtedly quite comfortable
and expert. By commenting on Clot’s ability to create colors reminiscent of pastels, Signac suggests that,
on the one hand, Clot can translate elements of fine art into color lithography and, on the other hand, that
Clot has a painter’s sensibility and skill with color.
183
Signac’s annotation reads: “Bon à tirer après totes les corrections indiquer"
184
Signac’s annotation reads: “Bon à tirer…avec les retouches indiquer et en tenant compete de ces
observations”
111
Clot’s ability, even without the artist’s physical presence and oversight, to elevate his prints to
the realm of art through his use of color, distinguishing Signac’s lithographs from cheap
commercial chromolithographs.
In contrast to Signac, some artists seemed to welcome the ambiguity inherent in
producing color in lithography and included fewer, more general, and more open-ended
comments to Clot. These artists left much subjective choice to the printer in terms of how to
interpret and incorporate their comments in the next proof. In the late 1890s, Maurice Denis
worked closely with Clot on the production of Amour, an album of twelve original color
lithographs published by Vollard in 1899. The album’s narrative of a blossoming romance
unfolds across the prints through a wide array of colors, from vivid tones to subtle shades of
pastel. Color is paramount in this album and in Denis’s artistic practice and theory more broadly.
In his 1890 article, “Definition of Neo-Traditionalism,” Denis wrote, “We should remember that
a picture—before being a war horse, a nude woman, or telling some other story—is essentially a
flat surface covered with colors arranged in a certain order.”
185
This assertion begins the essay
now considered the manifesto and stylistic program of the Nabis, a group of young artists active
in Paris in the 1890s, including Denis, Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, and Ker-Xavier
Roussel. Denis’s well-known pronouncement has frequently been understood in relation to his
broader theory that art could convey emotion through color, line, and form. Although Denis
designed each image in Amour, Clot controlled the material of color, mixing and applying the
color inks as well as printing the images. Color in these prints was thus assembled—in this case
printed—in a certain order by Clot, following dialogue between the printer and artist.

185
Maurice Denis, “Definition of Neo-Traditionism” (1890), trans. Peter Collier, in Art in Theory, 1815-
1900: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, eds. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, with Jason Gaiger,
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 863.
112
The collaboration between Denis and Clot is evident in an annotated trial proof of La Vie
devient précieuse, discrete, a lithograph printed in four colors from Amour. [Figure 2.18]
Because he lived outside of Paris in the suburb of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Denis frequently
provided feedback to Clot in long letters and on annotated trial proofs. Although the artist did at
times manage to travel to the printer’s atelier, the location of his residence in relation to Clot’s
atelier led to a more vibrant written correspondence between the two than the printer had with
other artists and colleagues.
186
Even from a distance, Denis worked with Clot and was engaged
in the printing process. Denis provided Clot with a color drawing for reference before they began
the process. From that reference image, Clot separated the colors, selected the appropriate
number of blocks, transferred parts of the image onto separate stones, and made initial choices
regarding color ink. After pulling a proof, Clot would have mailed or delivered the print to Denis
for review. Denis then adjusted and refined his artwork by way of the trial proof, ultimately
relying on Clot to make changes and adjustments to composition and color. Rather than noting
specific directions regarding color, however, Denis instead provided the printer with ambiguous
comments, leaving room for the printer to interpret color changes as he wished.
Denis’s notes convey the challenges of discussing color in written correspondence as well
as the artist’s understanding and acceptance of the open-ended nature of color correcting in
lithography. His annotations on La Vie devient précieuse, discrete indicate the artist’s desired
changes in color and composition for the next round of printing, but his corrections are vague
and subjective. Notes include “yellow more green,” “lower the pink on the head,” and “door in

186
Maurice Denis, unpublished agendas, 1890s-1936, Archives Maurice Denis, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Denis’s agenda books include many notations of his visits to Clot’s atelier from the 1890s up until 1936
when Denis completed work on illustrations, which he printed with Clot’s son André, for a luxury edition
of Poèmes by Francis Thompson published by Vollard.
113
dark blue.”
187
The labels given to colors and the directions provided left much to the printer’s
imagination. How much “more green” to make the yellow of the figure’s cloak? Which exact hue
of pink to now use on her face? How dark should the blue door be? Denis also provided feedback
for changes to color in larger areas of the print. He wrote, “replace the pink and undo the greens
everywhere except on the blue and on the woman” and “replace the pale blue with a flat [blue]
everywhere except the pink of the walls and less strong on the woman.”
188
What does he mean
by “everywhere”? With what hue should Clot replace the pale blue and what does “less strong”
entail exactly? Again, Denis’s language is nebulous about the locations he mentions and the
color changes he wishes to see. His notes are the types of corrections that the artist would make
himself to his own canvas. When conveyed to another person, this feedback underscores the
artist’s ease with how the printer will interpret his instructions.
Indeed, the imprecise language Denis used suggests that he was deciding upon the color
he felt best conveyed his sentiment through his exchange with the printer. Denis did not have
specific colors in mind but was using this trial-and-error process as a way to explore color,
mediated through the printer who controlled it. La Vie devient précieuse, discrete is likely based
on a real place and experience, and the young woman he portrays is probably his future wife,
Marthe. Nevertheless, the way that the figure appears to float suggests a distance from reality, as
if the scene is recalled from memory or a dream. In this sense, the image complements Denis’s
theory, which was based on the rejection of naturalism in favor of the synthesis of sensation and
imagination. Denis’s theory informed his lithographic print, in which color, as the expression of

187
Denis’s annotations read: “jaune plus vert,” “baisser le rose sur la tete,” and “porte en bleu foncé”
188
Denis’s annotations read: “remplir le rose et denous les verts partout sauf sur bleu et femme” and
“remplir le bleu clair en plat partout sauf rose des murs et moins fort sur la femme”
114
the artist’s emotion and sensation, was materialized by Clot. Perhaps recognizing the subjectivity
of color in his theory, Denis welcomed the printer’s involvement in the production of color.
Elsewhere in his written correspondence with Clot, Denis provides open-ended feedback
to the printer, leaving room for his creative contribution. In a hastily scribbled note to Clot from
1899, Denis wrote: “Send me here the proofs with the separated states, and in the following
order: I light blue, II dark gray, III pink, IV green.”
189
Although he does not mention the print by
name, it is possible that the note refers to one of the Amour prints, many of which were printed in
four colors. The letter suggests a familiarity between the two men and an interest in and technical
understanding of the process on the artist’s part. This letter also indicates, however, that while
Denis provided direction in terms of the order in printing color, he also entrusted important
decisions to the printer. His labels of “light blue,” “dark grey,” “pink,” and “green” left the
lithographer with significant freedom regarding color. What exact shades and what level of
opacity did the artist have in mind? From the prints that make up Amour, we know that Denis’s
preferred light, almost transparent hues of pink and green would not match the tones preferred by
another artist, such as the rich shades of Édouard Vuillard or vibrant tones of Edvard Munch,
both of whom also worked with Clot. In another letter to Clot, Denis wrote that if the printer
could “bring out better the line of the head, the line of the arm, the breast, it will be perfect.”
190

Again, Denis entrusted color and compositional adjustments to the printer with minimal and
ambiguous instruction. By 1899, Clot and Denis had already been working together for a few
years, so it is probable that the printer had cultivated an understanding of the artist’s color uses
and that the artist, in turn, trusted the aesthetic decisions made by the printer. Indeed, in another
letter to Clot, Denis wrote that the printer should “choose an intense mauve to suit your

189
Denis to Clot, 4 Aug. 1899, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
190
Denis to Clot, undated, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
115
whim.”
191
The selection of mauve, an artificial color not found in nature, in this case was entirely
at the printer’s discretion.
192
The term Denis uses, “fantaisie,” shows that he welcomed the
printer’s creativity and imagination in the production of color for his lithograph.
The final version of La Vie devient précieuse, discrete makes clear that selection of color
is essential, and thus that Clot played a pivotal role in producing the lithograph in its ultimate
form. [Figure 2.19] Incorporating the changes noted by Denis, the final lithograph is made with
four pale pastel colors that, hazy and muted, create an ethereal overall aesthetic. The pastel
shades that form the female figure render her luminescent, and the lunar tones of her veil reflect
a light that seems to wash over the entire surface of the print. Clot conveys the tones and texture
of pastel as a color material, adeptly translating one medium into another. The otherworldly
quality of the print depended both on Denis’s creative vision and Clot’s ability to manipulate
color ink to achieve this effect. While the artist likely had a vague conception of the final image
in mind, Clot chose the color, Denis reacted, and the print’s color scheme was crafted through
this exchange. In his letter referencing color corrections, Denis writes, “I do not need to ask you
to put the greatest care into this work, where your collaboration will be very effective.”
193
The
artist recognized the importance of Clot’s involvement, accepting and welcoming the printer’s
collaboration and understanding its significance in the production of his color lithographs.
Unlike Signac and Denis, who used the trial proof process to adjust and refine their color
selections, some artists relied heavily on the models that they provided to Clot, entrusting him to
reproduce as closely as possible the colors they had prepared in pastel, pencil, watercolor, or oil.
Some, such as Paul Cézanne, were less invested and less interested in collaborating with Clot,

191
Denis to Clot, undated, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
192
For more on mauve, see Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism, 28-29.
193
Denis to Clot, 4 Aug. 1899, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
116
while other artists encouraged Clot to follow models because they were unable to visit his atelier
in person. In a letter dated October 10, 1899, the Belgian Neo-Impressionist painter Théo Van
Rysselberghe wrote to Clot,
It will be, I think, vital for you to take charge of the retouching on the stone of the
different plates after they have been transferred…I cannot sufficiently realize in black the
strength of the color inks to be sure that the colors are true…I am relying on your great
experience and your talent which I have many times admired.
194

Along with the letter, the artist sent Clot the proof to which he refers, an image of a woman
standing on a pier drawn in black on transfer paper. The letter references a print Van
Rysselberghe produced in collaboration with Clot called La Jetée, which was included in
Germinal, a portfolio of twenty limited edition prints by various avant-garde painters.
195
[Figure
2.20] Because he resided outside of Paris, Van Rysselberghe could not work on the color stones
in person and instead entrusted the retouching of the color plates entirely to Clot. Several weeks
later, Van Rysselberghe responds after having seen the trial proof Clot sent him. From Brussels
on October 31, 1899, Van Rysselberghe writes,
I return the litho proofs to you without having annotated corrections, because I could not
do them without seeing the model; I believe besides that there is missing a print run
(orange).

Being unable to come to Paris before ten days, I can only ask you to do yourself the
touch-ups on the stone, deviating as little as possible from the model; I point out to you,
however, right now that the yellow of the hat and the glove of the woman seem to me too
strong—and the green of the water which should be more bluish—but you will realize for
yourself what there is to be done, and I count on your courtesy to arrive at a good
result.
196

194
Théo Van Rysselberghe to Clot, 10 Oct. 1899, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
195
Borrowing the name from Émile Zola’s 1885 novel, art dealer Julius Meier-Graefe published
Germinal, a compilation of original prints, in 1899 to advertise the opening of his gallery La Maison
Moderne. See Jay A. Clarke, “Meier-Graefe Sells Munch: The Critic as Dealer,” in Festschrift fûr
Eberhard W. Kornfeld zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Christine E. Stauffer (Bern: Kornfeld, 2003), 191.
196
Van Rysselberghe to Clot, 31 Oct. 1899, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
117
Van Rysselberghe’s letter manifests his concern above all with Clot’s close attendance to the
colors of the model he had provided the printer. Van Rysselberghe is well aware that his is the
final word, and yet despite this evident hierarchy, he solicits advice from the printer. Having sent
Clot the model, the artist no longer had an image against which to compare the proof’s color.
Whereas typically he might have ventured to Clot’s atelier to compare the new proof to the
model and discuss the necessary changes in person with Clot, here he chooses to leave much of
the decision making to the printer alone. He states that he has not annotated the proofs and
merely observes that the yellow used on the glove and hat is too strong, and that the hue of the
green water is too blue. Besides these comments, which he believes the printer will realize
himself in any case, the artist leaves further corrections and developments to Clot. Van
Rysselberghe apparently trusts Clot, commenting on his extensive experience and on the
printer’s ability to perceive the adjustments necessary to achieve a high-quality print. The
collaboration between artist and printer here required that Clot guess, assume, and anticipate Van
Rysselberghe’s preferences.
Indeed, part of Clot’s skill in collaborating with artists was his flexibility in adjusting his
working method based on the artist with whom he was printing. In his 1904 book La
Lithographie d’art, painter and lithographer Louis Huvey describes the printer of art lithographs
as an “indispensable collaborator.” He goes on,
The role of the printer, especially for art lithographs, is therefore very delicate and his
responsibility is enormous. His profession, made of observation, is not mathematical, the
knack changing almost with each artist. It takes a long time to learn, requires intelligence,
composure and skill. So it is a job that not everyone can do.
197

197
See Louis Huvey, La Lithographie d'art (Paris: Floury, 1904), 17.
118
Clot’s success as a master lithographer of original prints was undoubtedly based in large part on
his expertise with color ink, his knowledge of color theory, his understanding of the effects of the
medium, and his skill in working with color in the complex printing process. As Huvey’s remark
suggests, however, Clot’s popularity and successful career also depended on his interactions with
artists and their ability to work together in the production of color. Bringing his training and
experience at Lemercier into the artistic process, Clot performed many of the same techniques of
the color printing process that had been his responsibility in the large commercial firm. It was
only because of his experience in an industrial setting that Clot could distinguish the prints he
pulled from the commercial chromos disparaged by artists and critics alike.
Artists and Clot collaborated for the purpose of a shared common end goal, a high-quality
print that was marketed as an original art print. While the artist initially visualized and proposed
an idea to be materialized in print, the final color lithograph was in fact realized through dialogue
with the printer and subsequent corrections, reactions, adjustments, and choices made by both.
Color, therefore, is not solely a repository of artistic intention, creativity, or interiority; it is also a
sign of the printer’s labor and the material residue of the collaborative exchange between printer
and artist. Clot’s contemporaries, seeing and understating the significant role he played, cast his
collaboration as crucial to the artists’ ability to make original work in the medium. Vollard, for
example, recognized Clot’s significant role and the equal distribution of labor; to produce 100
copies of each lithograph for his albums of original prints, Vollard seems to have paid Clot 100
francs, the same amount that he paid each artist for their contribution.
198

198
Various entries in Vollard’s records suggest that the dealer-publisher paid Clot 100 francs to produce a
complete edition of each print. See, for example, Vollard Archives, MS 421 (4,3), fol. 41, 44, 57, 65, 83-
89, 91-94, 97, Centre de Documentation, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. See also Jonathan Pascoe Pratt and
Douglas Druick, “Vollard’s Print Albums,” in Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the
Avant-Garde, ed. Rebecca Rabinow (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006), 195.
119
Clot’s role in the production of original color lithographs was paradoxical. His
involvement enabled artists to achieve the colors they wished to see in print, ensuring the
“originality” of their lithographs. Critics, such as Mellerio, nevertheless remained uneasy with
the technical skill and confidence Clot carried over into his atelier practice from his extensive
training and experience at Lemercier. Clot’s expertise in color, however, emerged from his years
at Lemercier working with the industrial material of color ink. His knowledge of color and deft
handling of ink in turn drew artists into his atelier where they worked closely together in crafting
color. Understanding the intricacies of the printmaking process, Mellerio was above all
concerned about the printer’s role in the conception of color, a key factor of these art prints.
Clot’s collaborative role, therefore, continued to be considered at once as a great benefit as well
as a threat to artistic originality—which determined the growing art market’s value of the prints.
In these original lithographs, as much as it signifies the artist’s aesthetic, color also
remains the trace of the printer’s hand and the material evidence of color work, the collaborative
labor of artist and printer. But to ensure the market value of the prints as a new category of
limited edition art print, the publisher, printer, and artist had to diminish and ultimately erase the
printer’s involvement when the prints entered the market. In a break from a practice deeply
rooted in the long tradition of printmaking, in which the names of artist, printer, and often
publisher appear on the final print, the original art color lithographs pulled in Clot’s atelier bore
only the name of the artist who designed the initial composition. The association of art prints
with a singular maker has erased their history as products of collaboration, both in terms of the
materials Clot used—color ink—as well as their translation of other color media—reproducing
painting, watercolor, pastel, and crayon—into color lithography, as the next chapter will explore.

120

CHAPTER THREE
The Printer’s Translation: Reproduction in Print

In 1899, artist Auguste Rodin prepared twenty images for Le Jardin des supplices (1902),
a livre de luxe with text by Octave Mirbeau published by Ambroise Vollard. Auguste Clot
reproduced the earth tone washes of Rodin’s nudes in color lithography. [Figure 3.1] As the final
prints attest, the printer expertly replicated the pale color and translucent textures of the
watercolors over pencil drawings, using a technique called lavis to translate watercolor’s
diaphanous effect into lithography. In his review of the book in La Plume, critic André Mellerio
praises Clot’s reproductions, referring to the printer as an “artist” whose “mental calculation”
and “skillful and meticulous analysis” produce not a “cold facsimile”—a disparaging reference
to the commercial reproductive chromolithographs in circulation in the period—but a “warm
transposition and equal equivalence.”
199
In other words, Mellerio lauds Clot’s ability to marshal
his dexterity in color lithographic printing and knowledge of its techniques to create a lively
substitute that the critic feels masterfully captures the essence of the original artwork.
This chapter explores the range of Clot's manual labor in translation to explain the
seemingly contradictory importance of reproduction for the development of the original art print
in the fin de siècle. Paradoxically, given Mellerio’s praise, Clot developed this skill at the
Imprimerie Lemercier, the commercial print firm where he trained as a chromolithographic artist
and produced commercial reproductive lithographs. The printer continued this practice in his

199
André Mellerio, “Les dessins de Rodin interprétés lithographiquement en couleurs par A. Clot,” La
Plume, numéro exceptionnel, no. 6 (1900), 481-482. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
121
own atelier, where a part of his business was the reproduction of extant artworks, such as
Rodin’s wash drawings, a project for which the printer was credited. In many prints labeled
“original” and attributed only to a singular artist, however, Clot often employed his skill in
translating various color media into lithography. Because of color lithography’s technical
complexity, many artists approached the task of producing original prints in a somewhat hybrid
manner. Some provided the printer with a drawing or watercolor to be followed, while others
drew the black keystone image, which they then hand colored with watercolor, gouache, or
pastel for Clot to use as a guide. Indeed, many of the so-called original prints published by
Vollard combined the artist’s original idea with the printer’s translation of color—and sometimes
even drawing—into lithography. I contend that even when Clot worked closely with artists
committed to the intricacies of the printmaking process, he was often assisting them in
reconceiving in lithography their creative work in another color medium; many prints share the
same themes, color palettes, and even compositions as paintings or drawings by the artists. Clot
helped to capture the style of their work in painting or drawing—their avant-garde aesthetic—in
color lithography, a medium more affordable and easily circulated.
Clot’s participation blurred the distinction between reproductive and original prints; the
prints he produced, I argue, exist on a spectrum of reproduction ranging from copies of extant
artwork to reconceptions of an artist’s aesthetic in color lithography. None of these prints,
however, emerged from his atelier as “cold facsimiles” because of the manual and interpretive
work of Clot’s translations. Rather, the prints offered collectors additional versions or
alternatives to the artists’ work in other color media. Clot expertly navigated the translation of
artists’ work into lithography, avoiding any visual similarity to “chromos” and thus concealing
his own involvement as a chromiste. The prints that emerged from his atelier, however, share an
122
aesthetic of muted color palettes and simplified compositions, making visible Clot’s hand and
interpretive choices in his translation.

Reproductive Prints, Reproducing Painting
Clot’s role in the reproduction of color media in lithography recalls a long history of print
practices. From the fifteenth century, painting and printmaking remained closely intertwined.
Artists understood the power of print to reproduce and circulate their work, build their
reputations, and ensure their legacies. Early modern printmakers manually and laboriously
reproduced the compositions of extant artworks into woodcuts, engravings, and etchings through
various techniques and processes. Developments in new printing techniques emerged in the
eighteenth century in order to reproduce paintings and drawings more precisely, while industrial
printing processes in the nineteenth century in turn gained legitimacy through their association
with the fine arts.
In the early modern period, engravers translated paintings on metal plates, incising lines
using a sharp tool called a burin. These engravings were primarily monochrome, and printers
conveyed tone through the placement and depth of their lines—a series of parallel lines that print
historian and curator William Ivins referred to as a “syntax.”
200
Although these printers designed
plates that reproduced the composition of paintings, the term “reproductive” was never used to
describe such prints. In her study of the relationship between the painter Raphael and the
printmaker Marcantonio Raimondi, art historian Lisa Pon situates reproductive prints in a
Renaissance culture wherein scholars, artists, and critics understood copying as a form of
“imitation”; the copy diverged from the model sufficiently enough that it became a new work in

200
William M. Ivins, Prints and Visual Communication (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1969 [1953]).
123
itself.
201
Engravings after paintings were considered the printmaker’s interpretation, a translation
of one medium into another.
202

Reproductive engravings in the early modern period contributed to the idea of artists’
singular ownership and authority over their paintings. Pon shows how, for instance, the
collaborative relationship between Raphael and Marcantonio within the workshop setting
paradoxically helped to shape the idea of the artist as a creative individual in the sixteenth
century.
203
Raphael provided the printmaker designs for prints while Marcantonio in turn offered
the painter an outlet for the artist’s inventions via the modern printing press. [Figure 3.2]
Because of their mobility, low cost, and multiplicity, reproductive prints helped circulate and
build the reputation of the new figure of the artist in this period. The practice of burin engraving
remained a venerable tradition well into the nineteenth century, when printmakers continued to
employ such monochrome engravings to disseminate Salon paintings.
Burin engravings could convey a composition’s tone and light to an extent, but in the
eighteenth century, the advent of new printing technologies enabled the reproduction of painting
in color.
204
The emergence of various intaglio printing techniques—including aquatint, color
mezzotint, chalk manner, pastel manner, and wash manner—responded to a growing interest

201
Lisa Pon, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).
202
Ibid., 33.
203
Ibid.
204
Margaret Morgan Grasselli writes that between 1500 and 1730, any color printing was “experimental”
(artists trying out new techniques and materials) or “exceptional” (when a few impressions were made
with color ink or paper). Prior to the eighteenth century, color printing had been limited to the hand
colored woodcuts of the fifteenth century and experimental chiaroscuro prints. After 1730, however, the
production of and market for color print grew dramatically, especially in France. See Grasselli, “Color
Printmaking Before 1730,” in Colorful Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth-Century
France (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2003), 1-7; Susan Dackerman, Painted Prints: The
Revelation of Color in Northern Renaissance & Baroque Engravings, Etchings & Woodcuts (University
Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2002); Naoko Takahatake, ed., The Chiaroscuro Woodcut in
Renaissance Italy (Los Angeles, New York, and Munich: Los Angeles County Museum of Art in
association with DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2018).
124
among collectors in “material mimesis” by more precisely reproducing the tones and textures of
paintings and drawings.
205
Jakob Christoffel Le Bon invented the color mezzotint in 1721 as a
means to reproduce paintings, marketed as tableaux imprimées, or “painted prints,” that served
as substitute luxury products. [Figure 3.3] Jacques-Fabien Gautier Dagoty developed and
promoted this style, producing printed reproductions of paintings in set formats that could be put
into standard size frames. Color printmakers created a market for their work through
advertisements placed in journals; they sold prints that were no longer translations or
reproductions of artworks, but facsimiles that could be framed and installed in the home as a
substitute for paintings.
206

The edition size of mezzotints remained inherently limited, however. The preparation of
mezzotint plates required an enormous amount of labor owing to the use of a rocker, a tool that
created indentations and burrs over the plate’s surface.
207
Then printmakers used a burnisher to
polish certain areas of the surface that would then hold less ink than the unpolished areas. Due to
this extensive surface treatment, mezzotint plates were delicate and could accommodate a very
limited print run of only a handful of prime impressions before the plate began to degrade. The
effort required to print a mezzotint plate did not correspond to the number of prints produced.
Although popular and more affordable than paintings, “painted prints” never achieved the

205
This term is borrowed from Rebecca Zorach’s and Elizabeth Rodini’s introduction to Paper Museums:
The Reproductive Print in Europe, 1500–1800, eds. Rebecca Zorach and Elizabeth Rodini (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2005), 1.
206
Art historian Kristen Smentek situates “painted prints” within this growing market for color prints,
arguing that by the eighteenth century, there emerged an entirely new understanding of what the
reproductive print was intended to do and how it was used. See Smentek, “‘An Exact imitation Required
at Little Expense’: Marketing Color Prints in Eighteenth-Century France,” in Colorful Impressions: The
Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art,
2003), 9-21.
207
For a more detailed explanation of the mezzotint printing process, see Richard Benson, The Printed
Picture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2008), 44.
125
widespread circulation of chromolithographs in the nineteenth century.
Lithography, from its invention in 1796, appealed to printmakers precisely because it did
not require the laborious preparation of intaglio print processes, such as mezzotint.
208
In 1837,
lithographer Godefroy Engelmann patented a frame that simplified and streamlined the process
of color registration; he included several reproductions of extant artworks in his initial
presentation of the process.
209
[Figure 3.4] Chromolithography by the mid-nineteenth century
became an appealing way to reproduce artworks and proved more affordable to produce than
engravings and mezzotints. These reproductions frequently appeared in Universal Expositions to
demonstrate the possibilities afforded by the developing industrial process.
210
As Laura Anne
Kalba notes, promoters of the new medium also likely wished to align chromolithography with
the fine arts to elevate its status. Indeed, some chromolithographic reproductions of oil paintings,
called “oleographs,” varnished and made with oil-based inks that captured the effect of oil paint,
were sold on canvas and framed.
211
In the medium’s early years, chromolithographic
reproductions were valued for their mimetic quality and craftsmanship—their capacity to
realistically capture the bright textures and colors of extant artworks through printing ink. Often
composed of numerous colors, the reproductions exhibited the highly technical skill of
chromolithographic artists.

208
As explored in earlier chapters, lithography also invited the participation of nonprofessionals,
attracting academic painters because the medium allowed for a quicker, more spontaneous gesture. In the
first half of the nineteenth century, artists such as Antoine Gros, Carle Vernet, and later Théodore
Géricault and Eugène Delacroix produced monochrome lithographs that circulated as “sketches.” See
Patricia Mainardi, Another World: Nineteenth-Century Illustrated Print Culture (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2017), 14-21.
209
Laura Anne Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce, Technology, and Art (University
Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2017), 154-155.
210
Ibid., 155.
211
Ibid., 156. See also Michael Twyman, A History of Chromolithography: Printed Colour for All
(London: British Library, 2013), 216.
126
From the 1850s onwards, publishers and printers increasingly employed
chromolithography for the reproduction of artworks, offering the public facsimiles of oil
paintings and watercolors at various scales and prices. These works varied in subject matter,
landscapes by celebrated artists such as J. M. W. Turner being the most popular.
212
Between the
1850s to 1870s, reviewers of such reproductions remarked on the ability of chromolithography to
capture the exact appearance of the original painting, and at a much lower cost. Critics argued,
however, that the reproduction of artworks lowered the value of the original pieces. Despite
sometimes having a negative impact on the price of the original artwork, these prints
nevertheless served to grow the reputations of artists.
213

Champions of the medium also valued its democratizing potential. As Peter Marzio has
argued, Boston-based Louis Prang’s chromolithographic business circulated art and made it
available for the American middle class.
214
A self-promoter and savvy advertiser who credited
himself with launching the art of reproducing oil paintings within the American context, Prang
employed the term “chromo” for his reproductions of oil paintings.
215
From the 1860s onwards,
Prang’s business was largely in the reproduction of American oil painting; he would often
purchase paintings by living artists to reproduce at large scale, ensuring that he owned the
copyright and that no other publishers could reproduce the same work.
216
Middle class clients
purchased his chromos—often made of twenty or more colors—to frame and hang in their

212
As Michael Twyman notes, very few of these early reproductions remain as they were acquired for
private homes and thus typically did not stand the test of time. Ibid., 212-213.
213
Ibid., 214.
214
Peter C. Marzio, The Democratic Art: Pictures for a 19th-Century America, Chromolithography
1840–1900 (Boston: David R. Godine in association with the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art,
1979).
215
Ibid., 11.
216
Ibid., 95.
127
homes.
217
Although they remained a small part of his enterprise, Prang also published
reproductions of European paintings, including works by Correggio and Bouguereau, which
added prestige to his business.
218

In Britain, the Arundel Society, founded in 1848, also reproduced extant artworks. In 1856
the Society began to commission chromolithographs for the reproduction of historical artworks
as part of its mission to cultivate art appreciation.
219
The Society focused its effort on the
reproduction of Renaissance Italian art, and many artworks featured religious subject matter.
Along with the print, buyers would receive a notice advising them how to mount and frame their
reproduction. The chromolithographs proved popular amongst the public, although the project
was criticized by prominent figures such as John Ruskin, who referred to the chromolithographs
as “stamped colors.”
220
The Arundel Society’s reproduction enterprise eventually came to a close
in 1897 when interest in chromolithography waned as other means of reproducing artworks,
including hybrid photographic print processes, emerged on the market.
After the initial zeal for chromolithographic reproductions, by the end of the nineteenth
century, these prints became the subject of increasing debate and criticism. Critics found the
colors too bright and crude; these factors, they argued, called attention to the material qualities of
the reproduction.
221
In other words, the chromolithographs revealed their identity as
chromolithographs, conveying first and foremost the mechanical, industrial means of their
production rather than the essence of the original artwork. The chromolithographs produced by
Prang, the Arundel Society, and their contemporaries came to be considered “commercial”

217
Ibid., 103.
218
Ibid., 104.
219
The Society published nearly 200 chromolithographs between 1856 and 1897. Twyman, A History of
Chromolithography, 222.
220
Ibid.
221
Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism, 157.
128
chromolithographic reproductions, particularly in the final decades of the nineteenth century
when painters began to execute original compositions in chromolithography. Although skilled
chromistes continued to carry out the reproductions by hand, the commercial setting and use of
machine presses for large scale production associated the medium with the mechanical and
industrial.

Manual Reproduction in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility
Critics such as Mellerio evidently felt the need to address Clot’s reproductive work in
relation to other contemporary forms of reproduction such as chromolithography and
photography, using the comparison to situate Clot’s practice within a tradition of printmaking.
As scholars such as Stephen Bann and Patricia Mainardi have shown, the nineteenth century
featured an intersection and coexistence of numerous printmaking processes, including
engraving, etching, lithography, photography, and many hybrid processes.
222
Photography’s
emergence, publicly announced in 1839, did not render obsolete older forms of printmaking, but
it nevertheless altered notions of verisimilitude, indexicality, and mimesis. While these ideas
were long entrenched in the history of print, photography changed the nature of what printed
images could be expected to do.
223

In his review in La Plume, Mellerio elaborates on his praise for Clot’s translation work in
Le Jardin des supplices, comparing it against the “automatic” aspect of photography and even

222
See Stephen Bann, Parallel Lines: Printmakers, Painters, and Photographers in Nineteenth-Century
France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); Stephen Bann, Distinguished Images: Prints and the
Visual Economy in Nineteenth-Century France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013); Mainardi,
Another World.
223
See Geoffrey Batchen, Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography (Cambridge: The MIT
Press, 1999); Stefan Siegel, First Exposures: Writings from the Beginning of Photography (Los Angeles:
J. Paul Getty Museum, 2017).
129
chromolithography and instead aligning it with the “interpretation” that characterizes the practice
of a reproductive engraver.
M. Clot, repudiates… any compromise with photography. The design transcribed on stone
retains its character. Here we are, therefore, a long way from the qualified three-color
process, which is almost completely automatic. Here we need an intelligence which
observes, reflects, decides…In fact, Clot does not know a priori…what colors and how
many stones will be needed, in short how he will go about it. It is a mental calculation that
he must undertake…It is therefore, in short, a reproductive engraving, employing
lithographic polychromy, and retaining its faculty of interpretation. In this way, it differs
essentially from photographic processes, but rather is linked, with a different material and
a particular making, to the princeps of the black engraving of the 17th and 18th centuries,
to which we owe so many remarkable works.
224

In his review, Mellerio seems set on differentiating Clot’s work from other types of prints
circulating in the commercial sphere, noting that Clot avoids the rote copying that the critic
suggests is at work in chromolithography and photography. Clot’s print does not seem to
Mellerio like either a photograph or a chromolithographic reproductive print; instead, he sees it
as a translation of the essence of the artist’s work. Indeed, Mellerio calls Clot an “artist,”
explaining the necessary qualities he feels a printer must possess to achieve the success Clot did
in Le Jardin des supplices, as earlier quoted, “not a cold facsimile, but a warm transposition of
equal equivalence.” The critic acknowledges Clot’s training as a chromiste and the importance of
understanding the technical and complex possibilities and limitations of chromolithography.
Knowing that the Rodin reproductions were produced through the same techniques, Mellerio
reiterates the importance of aesthetic sensibility and skill in translation required by the printer. In
addition to this training, Mellerio adds, the printer must possess an intimate understanding of the
original artwork to be reproduced. Only with this supposed combination of technical skill and
artistic sensibility can such a faithful, lively reproduction emerge.

224
Mellerio, “Les dessins de Rodin,” 481-482.
130
The manual as well as mental quality of Clot’s work helped him avoid criticism for
engaging in mechanical reproduction. Using photography to distinguish Clot’s practice as
manual, Mellerio ultimately equates the printer’s version of Rodin’s wash drawings to
reproductive engravings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, emphasizing the skilled
translation of painting into print at the hands of engravers. Mellerio draws on the traditional,
respected practice of burin engraving, a medium that remained revered in the nineteenth century.
Despite shifting attitudes regarding reproductive prints and original printmaking as well as
the introduction of lithography and photography in the first half of the nineteenth century,
reproductive engraving underwent a revival.
225
As Bann has shown, there was a flourishing
market for prints during the 1830s; many of the most celebrated painters of this period, including
Ary Scheffer, Paul Delaroche, Jean-Dominique Ingres, and Horace Vernet, relied on the
circulation of their work through engraved reproductions produced by such figures as Paolo
Mercuri, Luigi Calamatta, and Louis Henriquel-Dupont. Bolstered by an understanding of
reproduction as an educational tool, as put forth by esteemed figures like critic Charles Blanc,
reproductive engravings appeared in publications such as Le Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Many
reproductive engravings after paintings were also published by the dealers of the Maison Goupil,
thus building the reputations of a number of Salon painters. Burin engraving carried associations
of high quality because of its long history as a medium with professional standards. The labor
involved and the length of time required to produce an engraving also exemplified the extensive
translational nature of its reproduction.
226
Bann shows that for Salon painters, burin
engravings—considered by critics and the Academy as personal interpretations of an original
painting—ensured the recognition of their larger scale artworks, thus helping to build their

225
Bann, Parallel Lines, 17
226
Ibid., 27.
131
careers.
227

Clot’s color lithographs, I contend, updated the long-established tradition of reproducing
painting through print for the modern art market. In engraving, however, printers reproduced
painting on metal plates through incised lines that clearly mark their impressions as monochrome
reproductive prints; in contrast, the more skilled Clot’s translation, the less evident it became that
they were color lithographs. The prints that emerged from Clot’s atelier primarily comprised a
small number of muted, pastel tones, undoubtedly a deliberate visual departure from popular
chromolithographs, which were often made up of over a dozen bright colors. Essential to their
status as artworks, in fact, was their visual distinction from commercially printed
chromolithographic reproductions of artworks. In other words, Clot adeptly marshaled those
qualities of color lithography that were appealing and acceptable to artists, critics, and
collectors—including its ability to capture the hand of the artist and the textures and colors of
painting, pastel, and watercolor—while simultaneously cloaking its visual associations with
industrial production and the commercial sphere of “chromos.” Clot negotiated this balance by
rendering his own labor and involvement invisible; in reducing the number of colors he printed,
Clot removed a chromatic element and in turn developed an overall style for the prints that
emerged from his atelier.

Clot’s Early Years as a Reproductive Printer
Although he was the most popular lithographer of original prints among artists in the fin
de siècle, Clot trained as a chromiste, working in the precise environment and in the type of

227
Notably, Bann explains how the reputation of Paul Delaroche, as the most famous painter in Europe in
this period, was built by the Maison Goupil, which commissioned and circulated burin engravings after
his paintings. Furthermore, artists such as Delaroche understood the value of these burin engravings in
ensuring their legacy through the permanence they guaranteed. Ibid., 38-40.
132
commercial printing against which Mellerio often cautioned. As discussed in chapter one,
chromistes at Lemercier worked on reproductions of extant artworks. They examined a painting
or drawing and determined how many color plates would be required to print it, including
individual tones and colors that could be achieved through layering two or more colors. Once
they decided upon a number, chromistes would prepare individual stones, drawing the parts of
the final image to be printed in that specific color onto the stone’s surface. Sometimes they
worked with a transfer of the full image—known as the keystone—as a guide, but the process
nevertheless required considerable skill in draftsmanship.
Clot’s work as a chromiste at Lemercier was anonymous owing to the division of labor
that characterized the production of chromolithographs in the commercial sphere.
228

Nevertheless, Clot’s contemporaries along with more recent scholars have credited him with two
major artworks created during his tenure at Lemercier: Édouard Manet’s Polichinelle (1874) and
the extensive catalogue for the Collection Spitzer (1890s).
229
These examples illustrate his skills
in the process of color separation as well as his expertise in drawing and his ability to capture the
color and texture of other media in lithography.
In 1874, early in his time at Lemercier and at a young age, Clot printed a seven-color
lithograph of Manet’s Polichinelle, which was exhibited at the Salon of the same year.
230
[Figure
3.5] The lithograph is a political satire, depicting General Patrice de MacMahon, president of
France, as Polichinelle from the commedia dell’arte. Although Manet intended to circulate the

228
Twyman, A History of Chromolithography, 343.
229
Several sources credit Clot. See Claude Roger-Marx, “Les Collaborateurs des artistes,” Le Populaire
no. 1488 (March 1, 1927): 4; André Marty, L’Imprimerie et les procédés de gravure aux vingtième siècle
(Paris: Chez l'auteur, 1906), 23; Jean Adhémar, Inventaire du fonds francais après 1800, Vol. V (Paris:
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des estampes, 1949), 48-50.
230
Clot would have been around fifteen years old. See Pat Gilmour, “Cher Monsieur Clot…Auguste Clot
and his Role as a Colour Lithographer,” in Lasting Impressions: Lithography as an Art, ed. Pat Gilmour
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 131.
133
image in the journal Le Temps in an edition of 8000, the French government stopped the printing
after only twenty-five impressions, rendering the print an accidental limited edition rather than
mass produced.
231
Until the 1970s, critics and historians considered Manet’s lithograph the first
original print in color lithography—excluding color posters—for which the artist drew each color
plate.
232
A hand-colored impression of the keystone, however, reveals that the artist likely drew
only the outline, leaving the young Clot to use the model as a guide in preparing and printing the
color plates. [Figures 3.6 and 3.7] Manet added color to the outline with gouache and watercolor,
the blue particularly vibrant in the hand-colored impression. The final lithograph, however, is
more muted, the blue replaced with a more subtle green. The shift in colors might reflect the
changes made during the trial proof process, which would have incorporated adjustments to color
as instructed by Manet. In his own atelier years later, Clot continued to produce color lithographs
that incorporated the artist’s design with hand-colored annotations, which the printer then
reproduced in lithography.
Clot’s training as a chromolithographic artist is also evident in the extensive Catalogue
Spitzer, which Clot oversaw at Lemercier.
233
The Catalogue Spitzer is a six-volume catalogue
published between 1890 and 1892 that documents Austrian collector Frédéric Spitzer’s
collection of decorative arts spanning antiquity to the Renaissance. Six hundred copies of this
luxury book were printed, a relatively small print run in comparison with typical book edition
sizes of the period that ran in the thousands. The fine quality of the printing is evident in the
chromolithographs, which were hand drawn and printed with between ten and fifteen colors.

231
See Ruth E. Iskin, The Poster: Art, Advertising, Design, and Collecting, 1860s–1900s (Hanover, NH:
Dartmouth College Press, 2014), 67-68; Frances Carey and Antony Griffiths, From Manet to Toulouse-
Lautrec: French Lithographs, 1860-1900 (London: British Museum, 1978), 37, 40.
232
See Twyman, A History of Chromolithography, 373; Carey and Griffiths, From Manet to Toulouse-
Lautrec, 37-40.
233
Gilmour, “Cher Monsieur Clot,” 131-132; Twyman, A History of Chromolithography, 234.
134
Across the six volumes Clot produced over one hundred color reproductions of stained glass,
painted glass, jewelry, paintings, porcelain, tapestry, goldsmith work, gems, and illuminated
manuscripts, expertly reproduced and printed at Lemercier.
234
Clot drew each object by hand,
separating each image by color and copying the resulting drawings onto the corresponding
number of stones. The printer’s skill as a chromolithographic artist is evident in his reproduction
of the effects of glass, porcelain, and other surfaces that reflect light. [Figure 3.8] The printer
deftly employed special printing inks in gold, silver, and bronze to recreate metal surfaces and
translate the textures of fabric and woven tapestries into rich color lithographs. [Figure 3.9] He
also reproduced other natural materials and pigments, such as pearl, ivory, and lapis, through
printing inks. [Figure 3.10] Using ink and crayon, Clot achieved the translation of various colors,
textures, and reflective surfaces into print. Although he did not work with a living artist—as he
had with Manet, for example, in 1874—the Catalogue Spitzer proved more technically complex
given the number of colors required and the details of each decorative object. Critics lauded this
publication as the apex of chromolithography; Henri Bouchot wrote that “…the plates from the
Spitzer catalogue printed at Lemercier show chromatic art at its peak.”
235
Beyond the skill
required to produce each chromolithograph, however, the sheer volume of images in the
catalogue suggest a complex project of color separation, draftsmanship, registration, and final
execution. It is undeniable that Clot honed his skills as a chromolithographic artist working on
such intricate projects as the Catalogue Spitzer.
At Lemercier, Clot learned and developed the skills of drawing and translating other

234
The name of Lemercier does not appear on the plates. Rather, after the title page, each volume states,
“the color plates were executed in the atelier of Lemercier and Cie.” As is typical with many prints that
emerged from Lemercier, the firm is credited while the printers responsible for the work remain
anonymous.
235
Henri Bouchot, La Lithographie (Paris: Librairies-Imprimeries Réunies, 1895), 247-248.
135
media into lithography. He perfected the craft of lithography and took advantage of its potential
as a medium that could capture the artist’s touch without the obvious intervention of the
engraver’s incised, parallel lines. The medium, however, remained linked to commercial printing
and reproduction, associations from which publishers and critics wished to distinguish original
art prints. As explored in prior chapters, the prints Clot worked on in his own atelier could be
elevated above commercial printing due to his considerable training and skill. His training as a
commercial chromiste paradoxically enabled him to raise the artistic status of the prints that
emerged from his atelier. Because of his prodigious skill, he could reproduce everything from
extant artworks to an artist’s overall aesthetic in lithographic form, blurring the distinction
between reproductive and original prints.

Reproduction as a Spectrum
Following his departure from Lemercier, Clot’s reputation as a skilled printer launched his
business and attracted avant-garde artists and the publishers commissioning their work in print.
In the late 1890s, print publishers financed and presented luxury illustrated books and fine art
prints, sold either as portfolios or individually, by painters working in printmaking. Many of the
color lithographs that emerged from Clot’s practice were pulled on his hand press. Ambroise
Vollard, for instance, commissioned Clot to print lithographs for several livres de peintre in the
late 1890s and also financed two albums of original prints produced by Clot in collaboration with
a number of artists in 1896 and 1897. Vollard then commissioned four albums by Nabis painters:
Pierre Bonnard’s Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris (1899), Maurice Denis’s Amour (1899),
Édouard Vuillard’s Paysages et interieurs (1899), and Ker-Xavier Roussel’s Paysages
(unpublished), all printed by Clot. Outside of his extensive work with Vollard, Clot was also
136
involved in the production of lithographs in the late 1890s for journals, such as the German
cultural magazine Pan, as well as for other dealers’ albums, including Germinal, art dealer Julius
Meier-Graefe’s 1899 portfolio of limited edition prints.
236

For such albums, luxury books, and journals, artists designed compositions to be realized
in lithography with the printer’s help. Although these prints were marketed as “original” and
singularly authored, closer attention to the ways in which they were printed illuminates the
lithographer’s hand in translating the artists’ designs from one medium into another. His manual
labor and skill facilitated his translation of media along a wide spectrum, from the reproduction
of extant works to the rendering of artists’ color annotations in print to assisting artists in
reconceiving their aesthetic in color lithography. Although Clot had established his own firm and
assumed the role of master printer, for certain projects he continued the specialized work he had
practiced at Lemercier, reproducing an extant work’s composition and color. In these instances,
artists typically were not closely involved in the reproduction of their work. Leaving all aspects
of the printmaking process in Clot’s capable hands, they signed off on the final print following
Clot’s extensive work. Clot’s skill in translation, however, also enabled him to approach the
printmaking process in a more hybrid manner. Some artists created a design to be carried out in
color lithography, but given the complexity of color printing, they then only executed the
composition. Meeting in the middle, Clot worked with their hand-colored proofs and preparatory
models to translate their watercolor, pastel, or pencil drawings into color lithographs. When
working closely with artists more invested in the printmaking process, Clot assumed what was
perhaps his most nuanced role: helping translate their painterly aesthetic into print. Together,

236
For more on Pan and Germinal, see Jay A. Clarke, “Meier-Graefe Sells Munch: The Critic as Dealer,”
in Festschrift fûr Eberhard W. Kornfeld zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Christine E. Stauffer (Bern: Kornfeld,
2003), 181-94; Catherine Krahmer, “PAN and Toulouse-Lautrec,” Print Quarterly 10, no. 4 (December
1993): 392-97.
137
artists and printer produced color lithographs that captured similar themes, compositions, and
color palettes as appeared in their paintings, drawings, and watercolors. The limited edition color
lithographs produced in Clot’s atelier offered potential collectors another version of an artist’s
work in other color media. A tiered system of modern art emerged in which collectors could
purchase a range of artworks by the same artist at different prices and in different formats that
nevertheless shared the artist’s avant-garde aesthetic.

Reproducing Extant Artworks
Although reproductive chromolithographs were no longer Clot’s focus in his new business,
at times publishers commissioned the printer to reproduce extant artworks. In these cases, the
printer resumed his role of chromiste, taking artworks—typically watercolors, pastels, or pencil
drawings—and translating them into lithographs through various complex processes. In these
cases, the artists were not involved in the printmaking process, although they typically reviewed
the final proof for approval. Left alone with these projects, Clot was at liberty to reproduce both
the composition and color of the original artwork however he saw fit. For each work, he would
have assessed his technique, performing the so-called “mental calculation,” as described by
Mellerio, in which Clot determined his unique approach to each translation. Although the
preparation and production stages of the printmaking process largely remained the same—from
Clot’s readying of the limestone to the laborious printing of an entire edition once the stones
were proofed—his work on the stone changed depending on the nature of the source material. He
had to choose whether to employ brushes or crayons and prepare different types of ink
depending on the texture and opacity of the original artwork he was tasked with translating into
lithography.
138
Clot received credit for his work as a chromiste inconsistently. In some cases, the
reproductive status of such prints was noted by way of the printer’s name included in the book or
album. Critics and buyers then understood the color lithographs as the printer’s interpretation of
the original. In a period that increasingly valued painters’ color lithographs, however, in certain
cases the reproductive prints entered the market as “originals”; once it was discovered that the
print was in fact Clot’s translation, the printer often received considerable criticism for his heavy
hand. Most often, if not openly acknowledged, the printer’s translation went unnoticed because
his skilled manual work ensured that the prints he made did not resemble the brightly colored
commercial chromolithographs also circulating in this moment.
Indeed, in comparison with the multi-colored and detailed commercial chromolithographs
that Clot pulled at Lemercier, such as the Collection Spitzer catalogue, the printer’s translation of
Rodin’s diaphanous watercolors appears subtle and muted. Beginning in 1899, in an extensive
reproductive project carried out in his own practice, Clot reproduced twenty pencil drawings
with watercolors that Rodin designed to illustrate the luxury version of Mirabeau’s Le Jardin de
supplices. Rodin drew nude figures outlined in thin pencil marks and washed in translucent earth
tones of ochre, umber, sienna, and rose. Each illustration features a singular figure or pair of
figures floating on a stark white page, signed by the artist. Although Rodin’s name appears on
every illustration, Clot carried out the entire production of each color lithograph without the
involvement of the artist in the printmaking process.
The language describing the authorship of the book’s illustrations is opaque. The 1899
contract between writer, artist, and publisher includes: “It is understood that the impressions of
Rodin’s compositions will be made by Clot.”
237
The description states that Clot will pull the

237
Octave Mirbeau, Auguste Rodin, and Ambroise Vollard, contract, 1899, Mirbeau (Octave), Archives
Musée Rodin, Paris.
139
impressions of Rodin’s “compositions,” suggesting that Clot will transform Rodin’s designs into
print. The language surrounding the reproduction of Rodin’s watercolors is vague, and this
ambiguous description of the illustrations is echoed in the final book itself. On the book’s title
page, it says: “Original compositions by Auguste Rodin.” Technically the drawings were
designed specifically for the book, making them “original”; yet the description deviates from
what was conventional at the time—describing artists’ prints as estampes originales. In the
colophon, the book announces that it is illustrated hors textes, meaning that the images are not
included alongside type, with “twenty original compositions by Auguste Rodin, of which
eighteen are in color. All the plates were printed by Clot and erased after printing.”
238
This
language reinforces the association of Rodin’s drawings with original prints, wherein a final key
part of their production was the erasure of the plates to ensure no future editions could be pulled
at a later date.
Although the book contract states simply that Clot will “make” Rodin’s compositions in
print, the printer’s manual reproduction was difficult and nuanced. After tracing the pencil
outline, he had to hand copy the watercolors into lithography using a technique called lavis
lithographique, or lavis sur pierre. Promoted by Rose-Joseph Lemercier in the 1840s to artists
and printers, the method aligned lithography with the potential to reproduce fine art by recreating
the delicate, translucent, and aqueous effect of watercolors and wash drawings.
239
The process
used a brush to spread special ink over the stone or transfer paper in a gesture similar to an
artist’s application of tinted wash. The result was a painterly effect in lithographic printing, and

238
Colophon for Octave Mirbeau, Le Jardin des supplices (Paris: Ambroise Vollard, 1902).
239
The process was in fact developed in the 1810s but became popular with Lemercier’s revival and
reintroduction of the method in the early 1840s. For more about the significance of lavis to lithography as
an industrial art, see Jeffrey Rosen, “Lemercier et Compagnie: Photolithography and the Industrialization
of Print Production in France, 1837-1859” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1988), 142-154.
140
lavis proved a popular method for the imitation of watercolor, either in the reproduction of
watercolors or for artists making original prints directly on the stone.
Although Lemercier intended the method to attract artists untrained in lithography, lavis,
however, was a challenging undertaking even for professionals. A certain amount of flexibility is
needed because it is difficult to control the opacity of the lavis wash on the stone’s surface. The
technique thus requires considerable skill and experience on the part of the printer.
240
In his 1893
treatise on lithography, Lemercier printer Édouard Duchatel describes lavis as “a process full of
surprises and unforeseen events.” He continues,
…it is therefore necessary for this kind of work more than for any other, that the artist
helps with trial proofing, so that on his advice, the printer can make on the stone, as he
pulls the proofs, any modifications deemed necessary…this cuisine can only be done under
the requisite conditions by a printer who knows his craft thoroughly and at the same time is
very accustomed to this kind of work.
241

Warning the artist interested in the process of its “surprises” and unexpected outcomes, Duchatel
advises the artist to oversee the process and leave the technically complex lavis method to
professional printers rather than take on the project of applying lavis himself as Lemercier had
promoted fifty years earlier. In such a position, artists could respond to and edit the proofs,
asking printers to modify, enrich, or dilute the value of tones. Whereas an artist such as Rodin
would perform these adjustments to his drawings or watercolors, in lavis the artist relied totally
on the printer. As Duchatel notes, the printer must be particularly skilled at the color lithographic
process as well as extensively experienced in the lavis method. Even for master printers such as
Duchatel and Clot, lavis remained a complex technique, one that, similarly to the artist’s inability
to assert full control over the execution and direction of watercolors, could not be controlled

240
My thanks to Christian Bramsen for explaining this process. Christian Bramsen (master printer, Atelier
Clot, Bramsen & Georges, Paris) in discussion with the author, March 20, 2019.
241
Édouard Duchatel, Traité de Lithographie Artistique (Paris: É. Duchatel, 1893), 22.
141
entirely.
Because of this lack of complete control, Clot took liberties in his translation, making
adjustments to tone and opacity to approximate the watery, fluid sense of Rodin’s original
watercolors. Comparison of several pairs of original watercolors and their reproductions in color
lithography illuminates Clot’s task and skill. One watercolor, La Fortune priée (1896-1900),
depicts two nudes, one kneeling while the other sits before her with arms outstretched. [Figure
3.11] The figures are outlined in lead pencil, their hands and skin tones added in translucent
watercolor over the pencil lines. Rodin applied the watercolor in a spontaneous, even haphazard
fashion, the wash falling short or spilling over the pencil outline. The washes pool at sections of
the figures’ bodies and in their hair, creating darker areas where more watercolor gathered and
dried. Clot’s chromolithographic reproduction approximates Rodin’s original image. [Figure 3.1]
The pencil outline closely follows the original; the printer may have used transfer paper to
achieve this precision.
242
His addition of wash, however, does not exactly reproduce Rodin’s
tones and effects. Clot approximated the pooling of watercolor on the hair of each figure,
creating darker areas that mimic the texture achieved by Rodin. Yet, whereas the hair of Rodin’s
figures is a dark umber, in Clot’s version the women have lighter, bolder hair of sienna. Clot also
lightened the skin tones, rendering his version with hints of rose rather than Rodin’s ochre tones.
The washes of the figures’ flesh in Clot’s lithograph pool in different parts of the body, not quite
replicating Rodin’s portrayal of these nude figures.
The tones in other watercolors also reemerge in slight variation in Clot’s versions. In his
lithograph of Femme agenouillée, Rodin’s reclining figure is lighter with stronger hints of orange
red. [Figures 3.12 and 3.13] Here Clot closely captures the brushstrokes of Rodin’s watercolor,

242
Gilmour suggests in passing that Clot may have used photographic methods to reproduce the pencil
outline. See Gilmour, “Cher Monsieur Clot,” 163.
142
tracing the same contours and approaching the outline by the same distance. Clot replicates the
pooling effect of Rodin’s watercolor figure’s shoulder, clasped hands, and foot. Because of the
lighter tone in Clot’s rendition, however, the pooling quality that the printer captures is more
obvious, as if the lavis technique is partially on display.
The lavis sur pierre method is also evident in Clot’s reproduction of a woman leaning over
with her hair cascading towards the floor. [Figures 3.14 and 3.15] In Rodin’s original watercolor,
the figure’s skin is an evenly applied rose wash. Her hair is a light sienna, the watercolor
application creating texture and volume. Her fingers, rendered in pencil, appear beneath the
darker wash of her hair. Her other arm is bent and her hand rests on her neck, almost entirely
hidden by the watercolor wash. In Clot’s version, the figure’s skin is a light ochre, streaked in
areas due to the effects of lavis. Her hair more closely resembles that of the original figure, yet
color is applied in a more streaked manner. The color of her hair wraps around her hand in Clot’s
version, and the sienna appears in a mark on her foot that does not exist in Rodin’s original.
Indeed, the application of lavis in Clot’s chromolithographic copy is indicative of the working
relationship between Clot and Rodin. Because the lithographic technique was notoriously
complex and elusive, Rodin would have agreed to accept Clot’s interpretation of his watercolor.
As explained earlier, the lavis technique was impossible to control completely, so Clot would
have found it difficult to copy precisely watercolor’s pooling effects. Still, Clot was able to
convey a similar wash effect in lavis to approximate Rodin’s original watercolor. In other words,
Clot translated the overall effect of Rodin’s watercolors, remaining somewhat imprecise in his
interpretation but appropriately mimicking the original medium.
Given the complex technique, Rodin would have needed to trust the printer and even
welcome the slight variations that arose in Clot’s translation. Correspondence between the two
143
illustrates their close professional and personal relationship and indicates that Rodin remained at
a distance during Clot’s process, reviewing only the final versions of Clot’s translations. Letters
between Clot and Rodin span prior to and after the 1899 Le Jardin des supplices project.
243
For
instance, a letter Clot sent on October 4, 1897 informs the artist that the printer sent new prints
along with the originals for Rodin’s review, suggesting that Clot awaited feedback after Rodin’s
side-by-side review of the original and reproduction.
244
In regard to Le Jardin des supplices, a
receipt sent from Clot to Rodin on September 13, 1899 confirms that of the twenty-four drawings
originally received, Clot returned fourteen to Rodin and held on to ten—five that were in the
final stages of printing for the book and five still in the process of being reproduced.
245
Indeed,
letters of a more personal nature reveal a friendship between the two men. A letter sent on June
18, 1904 by Clot’s wife Isabelle follows up on an invitation extended to Rodin to lunch at the
printer’s home.
246
It is possible that their personal friendship blossomed in the late 1890s, as an
1899 photograph of Clot visiting Rodin and Rose Beuret in Meudon attests. [Figure 3.16] Rodin
sits with his partner as Clot walks into the frame, a scene at once familiar and professional.
In addition to their frequent correspondence and evident personal ties, Rodin likely
welcomed Clot’s involvement in the reproduction of his watercolors given his extensive
sculpture practice. Already a celebrated artist by 1899, Rodin was accustomed to the
involvement of praticiens, or practitioners, in the production of his sculptures.
247
Rodin worked
with professional metalworkers in the bronze casting of his famous sculptures; he also employed

243
Letters between Clot and Rodin are housed in the folder Clot (Auguste), Archives Musée Rodin, Paris
and in the Fonds Auguste Clot, Département des estampes et de la photographie at the Bibliothèque
nationale de France, Paris.
244
Clot to Auguste Rodin, 4 Oct. 1897, Clot (Auguste), Archives Musée Rodin, Paris.
245
Clot to Rodin, 13 Sept. 1899, Clot, Musée Rodin.
246
Isabelle Clot to Rodin, 18 June 1904, Clot, Musée Rodin.
247
Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, Rodin (Paris: Citadelles et Mazenod, 2013), 215-218.
144
praticiens to carve his marble sculptures. Although he designed and made the plaster versions,
the production of the final sculptures nevertheless rested in the hands of other technically skilled
artisans.
248
In addition, Rodin did not seem particularly drawn to experimenting in a new
medium—color lithography—for this project. Rather, he relied on Clot, agreeing to and even
welcoming his interpretation. In turn, the printer focused his efforts on capturing the essence and
general effect of Rodin’s drawings. Its interpretive quality is what attracted Mellerio to Clot’s
translation, which the critic equated to the work of a reproductive engraver. Clot’s name,
however, did not appear on Rodin’s prints as the reproductive engraver’s would have beneath the
printed image. Although Clot’s name remained absent, his inclusion in the book’s colophon and
Mellerio’s discussion of his involvement reveals that his participation was known to
contemporaries. Indeed, Mellerio’s praise largely relied on the openness of the prints’
reproductive status.
In other instances, when Clot translated an extant artwork into lithography, its
reproductive status went unacknowledged, as was the case with his lithograph after Odilon
Redon’s pastel drawing, Béatrice. [Figure 3.17] Like Rodin, Redon also remained largely
uninvolved in the printing process, leaving the project in Clot’s hands. This color lithograph
features an ethereal, almost ghostly figure, her long neck and bare shoulders floating against a
muted sky. The sole splash of color appears in the upper right corner where vibrant blue organic
shapes emerge as if from outside the frame; perhaps a decorative addition, the markings seem to
be leaves from a nearby tree hovering above the figure at center. Unlike Rodin’s watercolors or

248
In her study of sculpture and decorative art, Claire Jones suggests that Rodin scholars have privileged
his practice as a sculptor over his work as a designer employing serial production in the decorative arts.
She calls for a rethinking of the perception of his “transition from artisan to artist” in order to complicate
ideas of authorship and the handmade in art history. See Claire Jones, Sculptors and Design Reform in
France, 1848 to 1895: Sculpture and the Decorative Arts (Surrey, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate,
2014), 3-11.
145
Manet’s Polichinelle, each with thin black outlines filled in with color, Redon’s Béatrice
materializes out of swaths of color, the contour of the figure’s pale yellow face outlined only by
the grey sky against which she stands.
The lithograph is Clot’s reproduction of an earlier pastel by Redon.
249
[Figure 3.18]
Vollard commissioned a reproduction of a work from his own collection, having purchased the
pastel from Redon in 1896.
250
Redon’s own words confirm the reproductive status of the print. In
a letter to Clot dated April 13, 1897, Redon writes,
I think it will be good if I am present for the printing of trial proofs of the pastel M.
Vollard is reproducing. There will undoubtedly be some color to change or modify. I am
therefore at your disposal for the day and time, except Friday.
251

The letter refers to Béatrice, confirmed by another letter sent several months earlier by Camille
Redon, the artist’s wife, referring to the pastel and inquiring about its whereabouts.
252
Clot used
the pastel, lent to him by Vollard, as a model in his preparation of the color lithograph.
Clot would have employed a different approach in reproducing Redon’s pastel
composition and textures than the method he used for Rodin’s watercolors. Color separation and
registration were key in this translation of the pastel’s multiple colors. To produce the lithograph,
Clot would likely have hand copied the large areas of the composition, in reverse, onto the
surface of a stone. He then would have transferred the keystone image onto five or six other

249
The first version of Redon’s Béatrice is from 1885. Pat Gilmour, however, identifies another pastel of
the same subject and composition from 1895, now in a private collection, that Vollard might have
provided to Clot for reproduction. The existence of another pastel might help to explain the difference in
color palettes between the 1885 version and Clot’s chromolithograph. In any case, Redon drafted his first
pastel of Béatrice in 1885 with the same composition reproduced a decade later by Clot. See Gilmour,
“On Originality,” Print Quarterly 25, no. 1 (March 2008): 41.
250
Vollard notes on October 29 in his ledger book: “Acheté à Redon un pastel Béatrice” for 150 francs.
Vollard Archives, MS 241 (4,3), fol. 56, Centre de Documentation, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
251
Odilon Redon to Clot, 13 April 1897, Fonds Auguste Clot, Département des estampes et de la
photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Paris.
252
Camille Redon to Clot, 14 Dec. 1896, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF.
146
stones, which he would have filled in by hand depending on which color that stone would
eventually print. From there he would have printed each stone and adjusted the color by
comparing it to the original copy, which was in his possession throughout this process. Clot
dexterously recreated the texture of the original by translating the powdery and hazy effect of
pastel using a lithographic crayon on stone. Mellerio, in his review of the album, calls out
Redon’s lithograph: “A pensive and lofty Béatrice, an exercise in the way of color, a personal
and intense lithograph.”
253
Mellerio praises the “personal” and “intense” nature of the lithograph,
suggesting that the artwork’s intimacy emerged from Redon’s creative process. In this case,
however, both the design and color materialized in Clot’s translation of Redon’s original pastel;
the print’s aesthetics, noted by Mellerio, are the result of Clot’s simplification of composition,
lightening of palette, and delicate washes of color.
Despite Clot’s role in producing Béatrice, Vollard included the print under Redon’s name
in his 1897 album of original prints, L'Album d'estampes originales de la Galerie Vollard.
254

Indeed, the dealer-publisher’s request for a color print must have had an impact on Redon’s
approach to this lithograph. Although experienced in printing monochrome lithographs, Redon
may have remained uninterested in or hesitant to delve into the intricate details of the color
lithographic printing process for this project. As suggested by his letter to the printer, the artist
nevertheless reviewed Clot’s work. Trial proofs also offer insight into how the artist and printer
translated the color palette of the original into the lithograph’s soft, muted tones. [Figure 3.19]

253
André Mellerio reviewed Vollard’s second album of original prints by peintre-graveurs in L’Estampe
et l’affiche. See André Mellerio, “Exposition de la deuxième année de l’Album d’estampes originales;
Galerie Vollard, 6, rue Laffitte,” L’Estampe et l’affiche 1 (1898).
254
The album contains thirty two prints in total, issued in two installments in April and July of 1897. See
Jonathan Pascoe Pratt and Douglas Druick, “Vollard’s Print Albums,” in Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise
Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, ed. Rebecca Rabinow (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2006), 189-196.
147
The trial proof illustrates how Clot translated the composition from Redon’s pastel while
simultaneously lightening the color scheme. Another reveals the continued simplification of the
composition. [Figure 3.20] Gone is the border surrounding the figure, and although the color
clearly appears as applied via crayon, it has been smoothed, as if rubbed or brushed on the stone.
The print’s final iteration lightens the scene, and more of the detail behind and around the figure
has faded away. Given the subtlety of the lithograph’s washed tones, Redon, as evidenced in his
letter to Clot, may have participated in the proofing of the final print, visiting the printer’s atelier
to discuss and work on color and its translation. Clot, however, was the skilled artist behind the
transformation of the bolder lines of the trial proof into the subtle blend of the final version’s
composition.
Based on Mellerio’s compliment regarding the effects of color in this lithograph, Clot
evidently achieved a success on par with his reproduction of Rodin’s watercolors. In the case of
Béatrice, however, the printer was later perceived as a threat to the so-called originality of
Redon’s print. Clot’s reproduction of Redon’s pastel is often rehearsed in the history of original
printmaking from this period. From Douglas Druick in 1977 to Michael Twyman in 2013,
scholars never fail to mention the reproductive status of this print, some even claiming that Clot
had a “heavy hand” in its production.
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Understanding Clot as a threat assumes, incorrectly, that
singular authorship is ever possible in color lithography, a process that requires the close
involvement of a professional printer. Furthermore, Clot’s reproduction only proved problematic
precisely because it emerged on the market ensconced within Vollard’s album and labeled as an
“original” print. At the time of its publication, Béatrice passed as an original print; Clot’s labor

255
See Douglas Druick, “Cézanne’s Lithographs,” in Cézanne: The Late Work, ed. William Rubin (New
York: Museum of Modern Art, 1977), 121; Twyman, A History of Chromolithography, 358-359; and Jim
Ganz, Impressionist Paris: City of Light (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2010), 84-
87.
148
eluded Mellerio in his review of the album. Per his review of Béatrice, Mellerio did not
recognize the print as a reproduction, praising instead its personal touch and the artist’s way with
color. Clot so skillfully translated the effect of Redon’s work in pastel that he won the critic’s
hearty praise. Yet, comparison of the original, trial proofs, and final lithograph reveal that the
print is far from a precise facsimile; instead, it is a version of Redon’s pastel.
Clot’s manual translations of Rodin’s watercolors and Redon’s pastel into color
lithography created approximations of the original artworks. They are a result of the printer’s
interpretation and transformation of the artworks into print, rather than exact facsimiles, as critics
characterized commercial chromolithographs in this period. Crucial to critics of the period was
that original color lithographs remain distinct from facsimile prints in both production and final
appearance. Throughout his 1898 La Lithographie originale en couleurs, Mellerio uses the
reproductive print as a foil. An artist, he argues, must simplify a design, not composing a
drawing of a large variety of colors that then would require the printer’s potentially
overwhelming involvement. Too many artists, Mellerio argues, are drawn to the simple
execution of color lithography when working with a printer. He cautions:
In our time, in lithography, as in all colored prints, there is a bifurcation of tendencies
representing two opposing principles. The first…the Facsimile. It is virtuosity, easy
mastery, and a mania to imitate not nature, but an artistic creation which has already been
achieved. It is the eternal resort of crafts people, which is useless and repugnant to true and
original artists…With a number of artists…here is what seems to happen. On the one hand,
their customary activities have given them a vision that they are used to realizing with
certain materials. They have been painters, they will always be painters, and it seems to
them that the new technique that they have taken up had no other aim than to render more
or less the vision and values of their usual work. Moreover, they are often ignorant of the
limits of the field they are entering as well as of the resources that it contains…The
craftsmanship quickly discourages them, or they let themselves get caught in the net of a
printer experienced in the technique. Then laziness sets in: it is so easy to hand over a bit
of a study of a figure or a landscape, or a sketchy canvas which the workman will
reproduce, as exactly—though never precisely—as he can.
256

256
André Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, trans. Margaret Needham, in The Color Revolution:
Color Lithography in France, 1890-1900, eds. Phillip Dennis Cate and Sinclair Hamilton Hitchings (New
149

Mellerio’s passage about the perils of the facsimile addresses two people involved in the process:
the chromolithographic printer and the artist. First, he criticizes the work of those creating
facsimile prints, “crafts people” who appear to be talented but lack creativity; these figures
reproduce extant artworks rather than design original compositions. His comments reveal that he
overlooks or purposefully leaves out any mention of the creativity, interpretation, and flexibility
required of the chromiste to reproduce an extant artwork. Mellerio goes on to caution artists
against following the much easier path of handing over to the printer a work for reproduction.
Artists, Mellerio warns, must educate themselves in the printmaking process to avoid
reproductive printing. The critic’s explicit warning reveals that Mellerio must have been well
aware that he was in fact narrating a collaborative process common, even necessary, in the
production of artists’ prints for the art market. Indeed, lithography attracted artists precisely
because of its close ties to drawing and overall aesthetic fluidity; with the expert help of a skilled
lithographer, the medium could represent the artist’s autographic gesture and the effects of
painting, watercolor, and pastel in printed form.

Interpreting the Artist’s Model
In addition to working with extant artworks as source material, Clot frequently translated
into lithography certain elements, such as color or composition, from artists’ models or sketches.
Such models arrived in Clot’s atelier from artists who worked with the printer to produce
“original” prints, but who did not wish to delve deeply into the more complex aspects of color
printing. These models typically included hand-colored additions to proofs or sketches drafted in

Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University press, 1978), 93-94.
150
color pencil; Clot interpreted his source material and transposed the models’ color or
composition onto stones as well as selected, mixed, and finally rolled color ink onto each. Using
these models as a guide, Clot continued his practice of translating various color media into
lithography to produce final prints that were partial reproductions.
In prints where there was an evident outline in the composition, sometimes artists would
draw the keystone print and hand color a proof with watercolor, pencil, or gouache for Clot to
copy in his preparation of color plates. Like Rodin, painter Paul Cézanne did not embrace the
experimental practice of printmaking. Yet upon Vollard’s request, Cézanne produced a color
lithograph entitled Petits baigneurs for the dealer-publisher’s 1897 album.
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[Figure 3.21] As
Douglas Druick notes in his extensive study of Cézanne’s graphic work, the artist produced only
a handful of prints, including three lithographs, all printed by Clot. Perhaps Cézanne, like Redon,
found the prospect of preparing color plates unappealing, so he engaged only in the step of the
printmaking process where he could work in black. Cézanne produced the outline of the scene in
the Petits baigneurs, probably drawing directly on the stone.
258
Clot then prepared a proof using
Cézanne’s outline. The artist then hand colored the trial proof with watercolors, sending back the
annotated proof as a maquette for Clot to copy. [Figure 3.22] Clot approached this project in a
similar manner to his preparation of color plates for Manet’s Polichinelle, reassuming his role of

257
In many ways, Cézanne owed the growth of his reputation to Vollard, who had given him his first solo
exhibition in 1895. The artist remained grateful to the dealer for helping establish his career at long last.
Vollard intended to include prints by both emerging and established painters in his albums and likely
requested a contribution from Cézanne. As a favor to the dealer-publisher, Cézanne agreed, though
printmaking was not an active part of his practice.
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Cézanne produced another similar lithograph around the same period, Grands baigneurs, perhaps
intended for Vollard’s third, and ultimately unpublished, album. It is possible that Cézanne produced
Grands baigneurs using transfer paper, then Petits baigneurs by drawing directly on the stone. Druick
argues this due to the hesitancy of Cézanne’s gestures in Petits baigneurs, implying that the artist drew,
in reverse, directly on the stone. In Grands baigneurs, the lines are more confident, suggesting that the
artist used transfer paper. Clot typically encouraged artists to try their hand on the stone after they had
experimented in transfer paper. See Druick, “Cézanne’s Lithographs,” 127.
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chromiste in determining how many stones would be required to print the colors Cézanne had
added to the proof and then copying each section by hand onto those stones. Given the close
proximity of the composition to the maquette and final print, Clot, not Cézanne, likely prepared
the color plates, a complex process that involved copying the original watercolor and pencil
marks onto each plate.
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Clot then mixed and rolled ink onto each plate and printed the final
proof. Considering the skeletal nature of Cézanne’s outline, a large portion of the composition
was executed in Clot’s color inking.
Clot captures the gesture of the artist, although the print’s colors are constituted, in this
case, by his manual reproduction of Cézanne’s marks. With the knowledge of Clot’s work on
this print, a comparison of the annotated version and the print reveal several subtle differences.
In Clot’s version, the colors are more obviously layered, in a sense calling attention to the color
plates from which Clot printed. The final color also exceeds the outlines of the composition in
different areas than the hand-colored version. The color palette of both the artist’s proof and the
printer’s version is reminiscent of Cézanne’s painting and drawing more broadly—often
composed of tones of ochre, blue, green, and black—although Clot used a more muted palette in
the color lithograph. The printer perhaps chose a more subtle color scheme to ensure that the
final result made up of pastel tones is visually distinct from the chromos still circulating in the
commercial sphere. It is possible that Clot wished to avoid the creation of too accurate a
facsimile in his printed version since Cézanne had returned to a composition that he explored
throughout his career; the subject matter of Petits baigneurs echoes paintings executed by the
artist in the 1880s and 1890s. [Figure 3.23] Clot expertly captures the general aesthetic of the
artist’s oeuvre without too closely copying any existing artwork. Petits baigneurs is thus

259
Druick notes some debate as to whether Clot or Cézanne prepared the color plates. Druick, “Cézanne’s
Lithographs,” 126.
152
ultimately as much about Clot’s approximation of Cézanne’s watercolor maquettes and oeuvre
more broadly as it is Cézanne’s carrying out of Vollard’s commission. Working from Cézanne’s
hand-colored proof and making interpretive choices in his translation, Clot created a partial
reproduction—in this case of material—the artist’s watercolor additions rendered in color ink in
the final version of the print.
Clot also demonstrated his interpretive skills when given an artist’s preparatory sketch as
a guide. A model the Neo-Impressionist artist Henri-Edmond Cross provided Clot reveals
another type of translation work that the printer did in preparing lithographs without the close
involvement of an artist. In 1898, Cross published a color lithograph titled Aux Champs-Elysées
in the German cultural magazine Pan. [Figure 3.24] Tiny, carefully placed dots compose the
lithograph, which features a scene of a nanny, the white ribbon of her bonnet streaming down
across the chair on which she perches near her charge who sits on the grass. Horses, carriages,
strollers, and other nannies traverse the busy street in front of the pair. A bold yellow sky
dominates the scene, against which a vibrant orange horse stands at center. The majority of the
scene emerges out of blue, green, purple, and pink dots; the figures appear frozen in an urban,
mundane, bourgeois moment. To produce the lithograph, Clot prepared four stones on which he
meticulously spread the dots to be printed in each color. The layering and juxtaposition of color
required his considerable skill in color registration.
The lithograph diverges in several significant ways from the drawing on which it is
modeled. [Figure 3.25] Cross’s sketch resembles neither the exact tone of color nor the pointillist
markings of the final print. As with Redon’s Béatrice, Cross’s Aux Champs-Elysées has no
skeleton outline in black. In Cross’s case, his print’s entire composition consists of color marks
that form the figures, ground, sky, and trees. His model lays out the composition, although in this
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pencil version he composed the outlines around trees and figures in his sketch using lines that are
replaced by dots in the print. Clot used the model when he transcribed the drawing onto the
separate color stones, probably translating the color crayon marks into dots himself. The color
scheme of the sketch also does not correspond exactly with Clot’s final print, suggesting that the
printer followed the general color placement when breaking down the image onto separate
stones. As we know from the trial proof process undertaken by Maurice Denis and Paul Signac,
who was a close colleague of Cross’s, it is possible that further color correction unfolded through
dialogue or correspondence between Clot and Cross. Nevertheless, the model reveals that Clot
translated some key compositional and color elements of this drawing into lithography, creating
a final proof that is a partial reproduction.
Clot’s considerable training as a chromiste and his work on diverse color lithographic
projects rendered him capable of all kinds of translation, particularly the hues, textures, and
effects of color media. Given various types of models to follow, he could adjust his working
method based on the need and level of involvement of the artist. His translations of the
watercolor, pastel, and pencil models illuminate the technical and interpretive choices that the
printer made during the production process, ensuring that the execution of the final proof could
never produce a facsimile of the source. And yet, these prints were never Clot’s entirely, but
partial reproductions of certain material and compositional elements of the artists’ models the
printer used as a guide.

Producing the Artist’s Aesthetic in Print
On certain projects, Clot did not have precise artwork or models to translate; rather, he
collaborated with artists to reconceive their avant-garde ideas and aesthetic in print. As explored
154
in chapter two, some artists were heavily involved in every stage of the printmaking process,
either working alongside Clot in the atelier or corresponding with him extensively regarding trial
proofs as he made changes and adjusted color. Long associated with avant-garde and original
experimentation in color lithography, the Nabi painters and Paul Signac were among those artists
engaged more closely with Clot in the execution of their prints. Although they sometimes
worked with transfer paper, they were frequently involved in the preparation and proofing of
color plates. The balance Clot achieved in his role as collaborative printer with these artists was
perhaps the most tenuous; he assisted such artists in reconceiving their own work in print, either
in the form of transcribing their preparatory drawings onto the stone or by producing their
aesthetic affect in print. He helped them create original prints that were closely related to their
work in painting and drawing, sharing similar themes, compositions, subject matter, and color
palettes. In doing so, he contributed to the emergence of a new category of modern art—the
“original” art print—that offered clients another access point to an artist’s work. Even when the
publishers marketed such prints as “original,” artists were nevertheless working with Clot to
translate their avant-garde aesthetic into lithography for wider circulation. The successful and
lucrative development of this art form paradoxically depended almost entirely on Clot’s skill to
create these aesthetic reproductions.
In preparation for his 1899 print album Amour, Maurice Denis worked out his ideas in
drawing, where he had more control over the process, and then collaborated with Clot to
transform these drawings into lithographs. Clot and Denis reconceived in print various
preparatory drawings in charcoal, gouache, pastel, and pencil on paper that the painter created
for the project. Denis evidently developed his compositions for the print series in drawing on
paper, sketching scenes that he eventually transformed into drawings on the stone, either by hand
155
or perhaps with transfer paper. He and Clot then worked on the color, its tone and texture, in the
trial proof process. The artist’s study for Nos âmes en des gestes lents lays out the composition
and experiments with the color palette. [Figure 3.26] A woman, head bowed and flower clasped
in her hand, rests her arms on an elaborately patterned fabric that covers a piano. Behind the
piano sits a figure whose face, in the drawing, is only partially visible above the sheet music. Red
pastel applied to the background and rubbed in by hand creates a rich and warm atmosphere.
Denis added yellow to the lamp and extended the color to its base, the piano’s surface, and the
woman’s face to illustrate the light cast by the lamp.
In his mixing of color for the printed version of this scene, Clot captures the soft chalky
texture and vibrancy of the drawing’s pastels, helping the artist convey the lamp light’s warmth
and glow. [Figure 3.27] The color print mimics the drawing but with slight adjustments to the
composition. The fabric’s design is more intricate, and more of the player’s face is revealed
behind the sheet music. The color is also similar to that of the drawing, although more evenly
applied and distributed; perhaps Clot or Denis used a brush in addition to lithographic crayons to
prepare the plates for inking. Clot helped Denis translate the tone and atmosphere of the scene,
conveying the light and color that Denis had worked out in the drawings. Although the majority
of Denis’ final lithographs are “original” in that he designed the compositions specifically for
print, Clot nevertheless assisted with translating the hues, textures, and effects of charcoal,
pastel, gouache and pencil into lithography.
Some of Denis’s drawings reveal that at times the artist used drawing as an intermediate
step, recreating compositions he had previously explored in painting in preparation for their
translation into lithography. Along with other painters in the Nabis group, Denis explored similar
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themes, compositions, and color palettes in fine art as well as the decorative arts.
260
Around the
same period in which he made Amour, Denis worked on a seven-panel frieze for the decoration
of a bedroom that dealer Siegfried Bing featured in his December 1895 exhibition at the Maison
de l’Art Nouveau. The frieze, inspired by Denis’s experience listening to Robert Schumann’s
1840 musical composition The Life and Love of a Woman, depicts several scenes from a young
woman’s life.
261
The series was deeply personal, emerging from Denis’s own life experience in
its portrayal of his young wife, Marthe. Marthe is also the central focus of Amour, and she
appears in both a panel of Denis’s frieze as well as in his print album in several scenes. The
frieze La Dormeuse features a woman outstretched on a chaise, asleep with her head in her arms
as two women approach her, one with arms raised to place a crown atop her head. [Figure 3.28]
The sleeping woman reappears in Allégorie, a color lithograph that crops the larger frieze scene
to focus in on the sleeping woman and the figure standing above her. [Figure 3.29] Working with
Clot, Denis translated a portion of this scene into print, first translating the composition into
drawing and then adjusting it for translation into lithography.
A comparison of the print from Amour, its preparatory sketches, and the frieze panel
indicate the extent to which Denis was thinking across media. In anticipation of reproducing his
frieze scene, Denis made drawings in which he worked out the color palette for Allégorie
through several studies in pencil and pastel on paper. He appears to have made an initial copy of
the frieze in a first study, with more details and bolder color, which corresponds closely to the
frieze’s composition. [Figure 3.30] In another pencil and pastel study, he reconfigured the
composition by focusing on the central figures and simplifying the overall design. [Figure 3.31]

260
See Gloria Groom, ed., Beyond the Easel: Decorative Painting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and
Roussel, 1890-1930 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001).
261
Other artists of the period engaged with Schumann’s work in their artwork. See Belgian Symbolist
painter Fernand Khnopff’s 1883 painting Listening to Schumann.
157
Denis seemed to have imagined the lithograph’s color palette in yet another study that washes
out the color further still. [Figure 3.32] The color lithograph that Clot and Denis eventually
printed together reflects this distilled composition; the colors do not exactly match the studies,
likely adjusted during the printmaking process, but Clot helped capture the effects and textures
of the pastel and crayon Denis used in his studies. Lithography was particularly suited for the
circulation of drawings in multiples.
262
Yet here, the color lithograph underwent a
transformation, reproducing neither the frieze nor the drawing exactly. Rather than creating a
facsimile of either, Clot helped Denis to forge a distinct iteration of the scene in color
lithography.
More than using lithography as a means of exact reproduction, Denis worked with Clot to
create a printed version of the themes he had long explored in other media. Together they
endeavored to translate the frieze’s dream-like essence, distilling a larger, rectangular, and more
complex composition into a color lithograph. The lithograph echoes the frieze, while offering a
more intimate encounter. Denis may have wished to reproduce these important, sentimental
moments from the frieze in a more mobile form. In a sense, he is refining his theory—art based
on the expression of the artist’s emotion and sensation—into a medium that could be more
widely dispersed, seen, and collected.
263
In other words, Clot and Denis together translated his
painterly aesthetic into a printed form.
Clot worked with other artists in such aesthetic translations, including Signac, who also

262
In this sense, Denis’s lithographs for Amour are reminiscent of the early days of lithography, when
artists such as Gericault and Delacroix produced monochrome lithographs that circulated as sketches. In a
way, Denis’s prints also reproduce drawings, yet the period context had changed; they became valuable
for their originality, though, as I have discussed, the inclusion of color—via Clot’s close involvement—
threatened their perceived originality.
263
Denis’s interest in circulating his work extended beyond fine art prints; he also designed sheet music,
such as La Damoiselle élue (1892), posters, including La Dépêche du Toulouse (1892), and wallpaper.
158
explored similar themes in painting as well as print. In the mid to late 1890s, Signac worked with
Clot on printing several color lithographs whose compositions also appeared in paintings from
the period.
264
He published the color lithograph Les Andelys after an oil painting Les Andelys,
Les Laveuses (1896) [Figures 3.33 and 3.34], Le Port, Saint-Tropez after Le Clocher de Saint-
Tropez (1895) [Figures 3.35 and 3.36], Bateaux à Flessingue after Le Port de Volendam (1896)
[Figures 3.37 and 3.38], and La Bouée after the painting La Bouée rouge, Saint-Tropez (1895).
[Figures 3.39 and 3.40]
For each of these color lithographs, Clot transferred Signac’s composition and pointillist
dots onto the stone, distilling and diluting color in his inking and pulling of color plates. Le Port,
Saint-Tropez, for example, presents the same composition as that in Signac’s painting Le
Clocher de Saint-Tropez, echoing the reflections of boats, buildings, and sky on the water;
clouds unfurl and form in the same areas in the print as in the painting. [Figures 3.35 and 3.36]
The lithograph’s color scheme, however, altered the painting’s deep purples and blues, replacing
them with more dominant yellows, light pinks, and purples in the print. The transformation of
color also occurs in others of Signac’s lithographs. The palette of the print version of Les
Andelys is lighter and more muted, the rich and bright greens of the painting replaced by softer
tones in the lithograph. [Figures 3.33 and 3.34] The color lithograph Bateaux à Flessingue takes
form through a carpeting of tiny dots, mimicking the composition of the painting, Le Port de
Volendam. [Figures 3.37 and 3.38] The latter’s deep reds, blues, and purples are replaced by
washed out tones, light and pale yellow, green, and pink dots combining to form the sky and
water. Rather than reproduce the paintings exactly, each of these prints adjusts the appearance of

264
Though not printed by Clot, Signac’s print for L’Estampe originale was also based on a watercolor
reproduced by Edward Ancourt. He also reproduced his large-scale painting Au temps d'harmonie (1893-
95) into a lithograph around 1896, though this was printed by Taillardat.
159
the painting just enough to offer a reminiscent, yet different articulation of the same composition.
Clot assisted Signac in producing printed versions of themes he explored in painting,
thereby creating a new kind of artwork; collectors who could not afford the painting could still
acquire the printed version. Indeed, discrepancies in dates for the paintings and prints expose
some confusion amongst scholars as to whether the paintings or prints came first. Curator Pat
Gilmour investigated the dating practice used by dealers Eberhard W. Kornfeld and Peter A.
Wick in their catalogue raisonné of Signac’s graphic art.
265
Gilmour argued that the prints, some
of which are dated circa 1894-1895, were misdated based on the date that Clot started his atelier
practice, around 1895/6, as well as on the fact that the prints are obviously reproductions of
paintings that should predate the prints but were given later dates. The dating of the prints and
paintings, though significant for cataloguing purposes, is of less importance than the fact that
Signac was working out the same composition across media. In other words, Gilmour’s
insistence on precise dating overshadows a more salient point: the artist sought to circulate
multiple versions of his work. Analysis of these pairs of paintings and prints and Clot’s
translation of Signac’s pointillist aesthetic into color lithographs illuminates the artist’s interest
in working across media and exploring the same subject matter using different formats and
materials.
That artists copied their own work was not a new practice. As Stephen Bann explores in
Parallel Lines, nineteenth-century Salon painters often reproduced their own work through
“replica paintings,” or répétitions.
266
Private commissions might have prompted Salon painters to

265
See Eberhard W. Kornfeld and Peter A. Wick, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre gravé et
lithographié de Paul Signac (Berne: Kornfeld et Klipstein, 1974); Pat Gilmour, “New Light on Paul
Signac’s Color Lithographs,” Burlington Magazine 132 (1990), 271-75; Pat Gilmour, “New Light on
Signac's Color Lithographs—Again!” Second Impressions: Modern Prints & Printmakers Reconsidered
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996), 3-11.
266
Bann, Parallel Lines, 18-20.
160
create additional versions of their own paintings, hand copied, and at times on a smaller scale.
The painter would hand sign and date the painting with the date of the replica’s creation, rather
than the date of the original artwork. Other “variants” of Salon paintings sometimes emerged,
including those not produced or even authorized by the artist.
267
These répétitions, Bann
contends, signify a period understanding of a nuanced difference between a “mere copy” and a
“genuine translation,” a distinction carried over into the relationship between reproductive
formats, such as burin engraving and photography.
268
Although he worked later and outside of
this more traditional Salon system, Signac engaged in a similar practice by creating additional
versions of his paintings. Perhaps encouraged by Vollard, who understood the potential for color
lithography to perform a similar circulation as replica paintings, Signac created his version of a
répétition in the form of a limited edition original color lithograph. Unlike painting, which the
artist could execute on his own, Signac needed Clot’s expertise to translate his painting into
print. With his manual work, Clot assisted artists in distilling their overall style in color
lithography to produce aesthetic reproductions. Although distinct from their sources, the color
lithographs remain characterized by a similar color palette, texture, subject matter, and unusual
cropping of their corresponding paintings, pastels, and watercolors. The color lithographs that
Clot helped to create updated the storied, centuries-old practice of reproducing artwork for the
modern art market; made through industrial techniques, the prints from Clot’s atelier, however,
entered the market as original, singularly authored artworks.

A Shared Aesthetic
Working as a collaborative printer, Clot altered and updated the role of the reproductive

267
Ibid., 22.
268
Ibid., 23.
161
printer, continuing the practice of interpretation and translation that had characterized the work
of burin engravers since the early modern period. Yet, Clot also adapted this process within the
context of the modern and industrial technology of chromolithography; the printer deftly
navigated the medium, marshaling its appealing qualities—its ability to capture color, texture,
and the hand of the artist, for example—while avoiding the creation of “facsimiles” by making
adjustments in his translations. The final prints are, significantly, never exact copies of the
original, nor do they resemble the highly complex chromolithographic reproductions made
earlier in the century. Clot’s reproductions, in their varied approximation of the original artwork,
serve as an alternative to the original piece, falling somewhere between an original and an exact
copy. His skill in manual reproduction and his ability to adjust his practice depending on specific
artists enabled him to participate in the emergence of a new art form: the art color lithograph.
Such color lithographs had the capacity to be more wide reaching than unique artworks by the
same artists, allowing collectors to access their work at various price points and in different
formats.
When taken as a whole, the color lithographs translated by Clot have their own style. They
share a similar simplification of composition and muted color palette, following the approach
that Mellerio celebrated. The critic encouraged a modesty of design and the use of fewer colors
in the production of original color lithographs in order to distinguish them from reproductive
chromolithographs, often composed of many colors and boasting intricate and detailed
designs.
269
Yet, the aesthetic similarity of Clot’s prints suggests that the visual echoing might in
fact be a result of the printer’s manual work in color lithography. His involvement united the
prints by avant-garde artists in this period. The style of the final prints—characterized by an

269
Mellerio, Original Color Lithography, 94.
162
abstracted composition, a pastel color palette, and delicate color washes—in fact reveals Clot’s
hand at work. Although Clot’s dexterity renders invisible the chromolithographic nature of the
final prints—and thus veils his overt involvement in their production as a commercial
chromiste—his manual translation remains visible in the prints through their shared aesthetic. In
order to circulate these prints successfully on the art market, however, dealer-publishers such as
Vollard needed to reaffirm their status as “original” prints made by a singular artist. In other
words, the material construction of the limited edition art print required the erasure of the printer.

163

CHAPTER FOUR
The Printer’s Erasure: The Limited Edition

Although he was a crucial collaborator, Auguste Clot’s name rarely appears on the prints
that he helped create. A rare exception is a poster designed by the Nabi artist Pierre Bonnard that
advertised an exhibition of prints by contemporary painters held at the Galerie Vollard in 1896.
[Figure 4.1] An inscription in small letters at the base of the poster reads, “Imp. par A. Clot,” or
“printed by A. Clot.” The inclusion of Clot’s name is noticeable here because of its otherwise
typical absence. Indeed, while his name appeared on the exhibition poster, Clot did not sign any
of the ten color lithographs included in Vollard’s album and exhibition, though they too emerged
from his atelier.
270

With the poster’s avant-garde composition and bold lettering, Clot’s name is certainly not
the first element that a viewer would notice. Its cropped framing and unusual angle render the
scene difficult to place at first glance; the poster depicts a woman seen from behind as she holds
and examines a print in her hands. On a table rests a finely bound leather book, evidently the
album from which she extracted the print she now grasps. Bonnard’s poster is composed of
brown, yellow, and green ink, a muted palette characteristic of his lithographic works. Bonnard
expertly marshals the contrast between the bold letters, handwritten on the stone, and the white
sheet of the poster paper—used by artists as a color itself and known as the “reserve”; the bright

270
Although Vollard had aimed for a complete set of color lithographs, as he neared his publication date,
he expanded his purview. Of the album’s twenty-two prints, thirteen were lithographs and ten were color
lithographs. See Jonathan Pascoe Pratt and Douglas Druick, “Vollard’s Print Albums,” in Cézanne to
Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, ed. Rebecca Rabinow (New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 2006), 189-196.
164
white text jumps out against the darkest spaces of the poster. The words “Les Peintres
Graveurs”—or painter-printmakers—describes the type of print in the exhibition and in the
collector’s hands: an original print designed by a painter. Words also convey key information,
including the dates of the exhibition as well as its location at the Galerie Vollard, a contemporary
art gallery on the Rue Laffitte operated by dealer-publisher Ambroise Vollard. Under the address
of the exhibition, the artist added his name and the year, “Bonnard 96.” The reference to Clot’s
contribution sits between the artist’s name and the small “+” registration mark. Perhaps because
it is a poster, intended to advertise, this constellation of names—Bonnard, Vollard, and Clot—
results in a rare moment when the commercial network behind the production of original artist
prints was so openly acknowledged.
This chapter explores how the network of dealer-publisher, printer, and artist constructed
the material format of the limited edition art print as a means to veil the printer’s collaboration
and lithography’s connections to commercial printing. In the late nineteenth century, color
lithographs continued to circulate in the public sphere in the form of commercial prints; to enter
the fine art market, the color lithograph thus required a reimagining through various value-
making material and rhetorical signifiers. I argue that Clot’s name never appeared on the surface
of these prints not only because his collaboration threatened their value in the art market, which
relied on singular authorship, but also because Clot’s ties to industry had to be made absent—or
at the very least visually and materially undiscoverable.
Soon after establishing his gallery in 1893, Vollard began publishing print albums and
livres d’artiste. His primary business, however, was the sale of paintings and sculptures by
avant-garde artists. He exhibited and sold the work of many major figures in the history of
modern art, including Vincent Van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Odilon Redon, and the Nabis; he also
165
launched the careers of Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso.
271
Understanding the promotional
potential of artists’ prints, he asked artists whose painting and sculpture he sold to make prints,
particularly color lithographs, directing them to Clot’s atelier.
In the early years of his business, Vollard—along with Clot and these artists—
established the marketing strategies he would continue to employ until his death in 1939. Vollard
arbitrarily limited the edition size of art prints he published, typically to 100 copies, to
distinguish them from the large-scale production of commercial firms such as the Imprimerie
Lemercier, where print runs typically reached the thousands. The printer canceled plates and
pulled proofs as evidence that no future editions could ever be produced. Artists then numbered
the impressions by hand as a visual sign of their limited edition status. Vollard also ordered
special, high quality paper—and some with custom watermarks—to differentiate his art prints
from ephemeral posters and more inexpensively printed commercial chromolithographs. This
selection of elements of traditional printmaking, avant-garde art, and commercial printing to
associate with art prints resulted in a codified marketing system for the limited edition original
color lithograph in the early years of Vollard’s publishing practice from 1895 to 1902.
It was not only artists and publishers who benefited from the increased value of the prints
based on the erasure of the printer’s collaboration and ties to industrial printing; printers did as
well. Master printers played an active role in implementing the marketing strategies that served
to efface any trace of their involvement and helped to establish a narrative that promoted the
association of color lithographs with the artist’s creative, singular process. Clot, like several of
his colleagues working at other firms, collected models, color trial proofs, annotated proofs, and

271
Ann Dumas, “Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde,” in Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise
Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, ed. Rebecca Rabinow (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2006), 2-27.
166
other prints left over from his close collaboration with artists in his atelier. In what might
otherwise constitute the detritus of the printmaking process, this material entered the print market
and was sold by printers at auction and to dealers. These proofs often make visible the very
industrial and collaborative nature of the color lithographic process that was meant to be veiled.
Yet, presenting them instead as rare insight into the artist’s process, printers helped craft a
narrative of artistic authorship around the artists’ work in lithography and thus augment the
market value of the final art print. Although their collaboration went unacknowledged on the
print’s surface, printers benefited financially from their visual omission; the more recognized and
celebrated the artists eventually became, the more valuable their prints would be to printers, who
themselves collected and sold prints. Printers, participating in their own erasure from the history
of art prints, contributed to the construction of the limited edition through its production,
collection, and circulation.

History of the Peintre-Graveur
In his decision to publish prints by painters, Ambroise Vollard tapped into a long-
established market for painters’ prints that was experiencing a revival in the late nineteenth
century. Though the technologies and value systems surrounding their practices changed
considerably, from the fifteenth century until the late nineteenth century, painters often worked
in printmaking. By choosing to commission contemporary painters to make prints, Vollard
aligned his practice with this venerable history while responding to more recent shifts in the
market for art prints made through color printing processes.
In addition to reproductive engraving and woodcut, the early modern period witnessed
painters experimenting in print to create original compositions not based on extant artworks.
167
Though they emerged from collaborative workshops, woodcuts and engravings from the late
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries can often be attributed to a specific printmaker. Printmaking in
woodcut, engraving, and etching became an independent artistic practice in the hands of such
artists as Andrea Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer, Raphael, Albrecht Altdorfer, and Parmigianino,
among others, though they did not always carve the wood or engrave or etch the plates
themselves.
272
Within the arts in this period, printmaking remained equal, rather than
subservient, to painting and proved a productive method for circulating artistic work more
widely.
Though it emerged closely following engraving in the fifteenth century, the intaglio
process of etching became increasingly popular as an art form among Dutch printmakers during
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Requiring less technical training than engraving, etching
more closely resembled drawing and thus appealed to artists such as Rembrandt and Hercules
Segers. Artists during the early modern period continually turned to etching because of the print
medium’s experimental quality.
273
Etching attracted artists because of its “painterly” qualities;
they explored the medium’s rich texture and fluidity as well as its tonal and expressive
potential.
274
It offered painters a medium between drawing—which permitted more spontaneity
and a wide variety of subject matter—and painting—which was public but restricted by
commissions.
275
Artists often etched and printed their own plates, a practice that would later be
revived in the nineteenth century.

272
See David Landau and Peter Parshall, The Renaissance Print: 1470-1550 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1994).
273
Michael Cole, ed., The Early Modern Painter-Etcher (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2006),
31.
274
Ibid., 15.
275
See Catherine Jenkins, Nadine M. Orenstein, and Freyda Spira, The Renaissance of Etching (New
York: Metropolitan Museum of Art with Yale University Press, 2019).
168
Although painters had experimented in printmaking for hundreds of years, in the early
nineteenth century, the scholarship of Austrian print historian Adam von Bartsch shifted the
perception of their work. In Le Peintre graveur (1803-1821), his multi-volume study of Old
Master prints, Bartsch distinguished original, autographic prints from reproductive prints. In a
period that still valued the reproductive burin engravings within the academic setting of the
Salon, Bartsch’s study recognized instead the original compositions of peintres-graveurs, or
painter-printmakers, such as Dürer and Rembrandt. His term peintre-graveur named a new
category of artist, and his study marked a distinction between reproductive and original prints
that would continue to inform scholarship from the nineteenth century to the present day.
276
His
publication, however, focused on original prints by Old Masters rather than contemporary artists
working in print. Indeed, until the second half of the nineteenth century, reproductive engravings
were more valued and respected within the academic setting than contemporary prints by
peintres-graveurs, though Salon painters such as Horace and Carle Vernet were executing
original lithographs in the 1810s in France.
277

Painters continued to work in printmaking throughout the nineteenth century, but not until
the 1860s did the status of the original print change, initiated by the efforts of Alfred Cadart, the
print publisher behind the etching revival.
278
Between 1862 and 1867, Cadart, along with printer
Auguste Delâtre, published Eaux-fortes modernes: Publication d’oeuvres originales et inédites,
the mouthpiece of the Société des aquafortistes, a group that included painters such as Gustave

276
Bartsch is frequently cited in recent accounts of early modern painter-printmakers, studies that often
use his category as the focus of their work. See Parshall and Landau, The Renaissance Print and Cole,
The Early Modern Painter-Etcher, 5-6.
277
See Patricia Mainardi, Another World: Nineteenth-Century Illustrated Print Culture (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2017), 17-18.
278
See Emma Chambers, An Indolent and Blundering Art? The Etching Revival and the Redefinition of
Etching in England (Surrey, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 1999).
169
Courbet, Jean-François Millet, and Édouard Manet and printmakers Félix Bracquemond and
Maxime Lalanne, among others. Cadart’s efforts and this publication aimed to align the
nineteenth-century revival of etching with the artistic practice of celebrated painter-printmakers
such as Rembrandt and Goya. Those involved in the revival associated the medium with early
modern, preindustrial printmaking processes and emphasized its potential for conveying a
painterly gesture. As Anna Sigrídur Arnar explains, Cadart worked intently to promote etching
as an artistic medium and to market etchings as original prints.
279
He sold prints by subscription
and instituted certain measures that distinguished original art prints from illustrations or
sketches, such as canceling plates and including artists’ signatures scrawled by hand in graphite
(rather than printed) beneath the image. Vollard would adapt and formalize the techniques that
Cadart had introduced, developing similar marketing strategies for color lithographic prints.
Original printmaking became increasingly interesting to artists in the 1870s and 1880s as
Impressionist painters experimented in the graphic arts. Artists such as Edgar Degas, Camille
Pissarro, and Mary Cassatt, among others, began to make etchings, working closely on their own
plates and experimenting with textures and inking.
280
In the 1880s, art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel,
critic Philippe Burty, and printmaker Félix Buhot joined forces to organize several exhibitions of
painters working in printmaking. Five gallery exhibitions took place at the Galeries Durand-Ruel
from 1889 through 1893, featuring Impressionist painters working in print.
281
As the exhibition’s

279
Anna Sigrídur Arnar, The Book as Instrument: Stéphane Mallarmé, the Artist’s Book, and the
Transformation of Print Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 72.
280
See Antonia Lant, “Purpose and Practice in French Avant-Garde Printmaking of the 1880s,” Oxford
Art Journal 6, no. 1 (1983), 19-20. The artists of this revival worked on the plates themselves and many
were closely involved in the inking and printing processes, although some left these final steps to Delâtre
and later his son, Eugène Delâtre. The etchings were predominantly printed in black and white,
considered more traditional and acceptable than color printing in this period. Later, color etchings
emerged from Eugène Delâtre’s workshop.
281
Lindsay Leard, “The Société des Peintres-Graveurs Français in 1889-97,” Print Quarterly 14, no. 4
(December 1997): 355-363.
170
host, Durand-Ruel capitalized on the growing popularity of prints by peintres-graveurs and the
expanding and enthusiastic client base that could afford them, even when they could not afford
paintings by the same artists.
282

Artists in the 1880s and 1890s continued to seek new venues and platforms for their art
outside of the Salon system. In this period, avant-garde painters began to explore color
lithography, inspired by the artistic chromolithographic posters of Jules Chéret and Japanese
woodblock prints. By this point, lithography was no longer the dominant printing process used
for the circulation of images in the public sphere; France’s visual landscape also included wood
engravings, photogravures, photolithographs, and halftones. Thus, color lithographs by peintres-
graveurs joined etchings and woodcuts in a growing market for original prints.
Many publishers rushed to capitalize on the increasing interest in original prints and began
to commission and sell the work of contemporary painters in print. The first publisher of
contemporary prints was Edmond Sagot, who started his business in the 1880s, followed by
Édouard Kleinmann, Gustave Pellet, and André Marty. These publishers commissioned and sold
individual prints, print suites, and compilation albums. One of the most influential of these
albums was L’Estampe originale, organized by Marty, to which many avant-garde painters
contributed, including Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Odilon Redon.
283

282
Durand-Ruel recognized the importance of original prints as a promotional tool and thus aligned
himself with painters’ innovative use of reproductive media. He did not, however, commission them.
Vollard continued Durand-Ruel’s practice of exhibiting original prints by artists, but he also
commissioned prints, becoming both a dealer and publisher. See Sylvie Patry, ed., Inventing
Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market (London: National Gallery Company with
Yale University Press, 2015).
283
A less well known album also called L’Estampe originale preceded Marty’s. Published by Auguste
Lepère between 1888 and 1889, the album promoted original printmaking in wood engraving. See Phillip
Dennis Cate, Gale B. Murray, and Richard Thomson, Prints Abound: Paris in the 1890s, From the
Collections of Virginia and Ira Jackson and the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.: National
Gallery of Art, 2000), 17-18.
171
Published between 1893 and 1895, the album brought together artists and printers working in
multiple techniques, including lithography, etching, and woodcut, though color lithography was
most represented. Subscribers paid 150 francs a year and over the course of two years received
ninety-five prints released in nine installments; each print was one of a 100 copies.
284
Marty
guaranteed his artists creative freedom, and the resulting compilations were characterized by the
experimental energy of the artists involved, many of whom were new to printmaking. Though
the project was short lived, Marty nevertheless played an important role in the revival of
printmaking as an artistic medium.
285
With the close of Marty’s album, the emerging art dealer
Ambroise Vollard must have seen his chance to fill a void in the market.

Vollard and the Art Market
Vollard ventured into publishing the graphic arts soon after establishing his business
dealing contemporary paintings and sculptures. With the opening of his gallery on the Rue
Laffitte, Vollard joined the ranks of commercial dealers of modern art. This was a small but
expanding group that emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century as the art market grew
outside of the traditional Academy, which included its school, the École des Beaux-Arts, and its
exhibition space, the Salon. Dealers assumed a new role in promoting art as the Salon began to
weaken first with the Salon des Refusés in the 1860s and the Impressionists’ breakthrough
exhibitions in the 1870s.
286
In the vein of the Impressionists, many avant-garde artists also began

284
Further details about L’Estampe Originale can be found in Ruth E. Iskin, The Poster: Art, Advertising,
Design, and Collecting, 1860s–1900s (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2014), 134.
285
Donna Stein writes that the albums were meant to run only until 1895, citing a letter sent by Camille
Pissarro to his son Lucien on January 28, 1894, referring to the “last number of Marty’s portfolio.” As a
print by Pissarro appeared in the final album in 1895, she argues that Marty must have been planning the
albums around a year prior to publication. Donna Stein and Donald H. Karshan, L’Estampe originale: A
Catalogue Raisonné (New York: Museum of Graphic Art, 1970), 13.
286
For more on the Academy, see Robert Jensen, Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe
172
to operate outside of the structures that had defined the arts in France for nearly two hundred
years. Art dealers established their businesses, including Durand-Ruel, Georges Petit, Alexandre
Bernheim and his sons, and Vollard; they helped artists exhibit and sell their artworks to a
growing middle class that sought smaller scale and more informal paintings with which to
decorate their homes.
Vollard quickly established himself amongst these dealers following the success of his
Cézanne exhibition in 1895.
287
Though the artist had painted for decades, his work was not yet
widely known. The show introduced Paris to the artist and proved a financial success for
Vollard. After moving to a new and larger space on the Rue Laffitte in 1896, Vollard turned his
attention to printmaking, as he himself narrates in his memoir: “I was hardly settled in the Rue
Laffitte…when I began to dream of publishing prints, but they must be prints by ‘painter-
printmakers’… My idea was to obtain prints from artists who were not printmakers by
profession.”
288
Though he supported artists’ work in woodcut and etching, he particularly
encouraged their practice in color lithography, sending artists to work with Auguste Clot.
Vollard essentially combined the roles of Durand-Ruel, an art dealer who exhibited
original prints but did not commission them, and Marty, a print publisher who was not a dealer
of painting and sculpture. He became a dealer-publisher, and unlike many of his colleagues, the
publication of graphic arts remained an important part of his business, often coinciding with his
exhibition calendar.
289
His Album des peintres-graveurs (1896) and Album d’estampes originales

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 23-24.
287
See Robert Jensen, “Vollard and Cézanne: An Anatomy of a Relationship,” in Cézanne to Picasso:
Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, ed. Rebecca Rabinow (New York: Metropolitan Museum
of Art, 2006), 29-47.
288
Ambroise Vollard, Souvenirs d’un marchand de tableaux (Paris: Alban Michel, 1937), 298. Unless
otherwise noted, all translation are my own.
289
The role of the dealer-publisher was a nineteenth-century phenomenon, particularly in the decorative
arts. Émile Gallé, for example, was a marchand-éditeur of his own work in glass, furniture, and ceramics.
173
de la Galerie Vollard (1897), primarily composed of color lithographs, were accompanied by
group exhibitions featuring these original prints. Following two Nabis group exhibitions held in
1897 and 1898, Vollard published individual albums of color lithographs by members of the
group, Maurice Denis (1899), Pierre Bonnard (1899), and Édouard Vuillard (1899). The dealer
would go on to exhibit artists’ work primarily in solo exhibitions in the twentieth century,
although he continued to publish print suites and livres de peintre by the same artists whose work
he exhibited and sold, including Bonnard, Denis, Picasso, Émile Bernard, Georges Rouault, and
Marc Chagall.
290
Though not all of the artists Vollard promoted became famous, many of those
who did had made original prints.
Because these print albums and books were expensive for Vollard to produce and did not
achieve immediate success, scholars have largely characterized his publishing practice as a
passion project.
291
Una Johnson and Rebecca Rabinow, for instance, characterize Vollard’s
attention to details—such as his commitment to using high quality paper—and his decision to
commission work from highly skilled, and thus expensive, typesetters and master printers as part
of his personal interest in the printmaking process. Their account is rooted in Vollard’s own

See Véronique Ayroles and Jean-Luc Olivié, “La Verrerie d’art en Lorraine,” in L’Ecole de Nancy, 1889-
1909: Art nouveau et industries d’art, ed. François Loyer (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des Musées
Nationaux, 1999), 169-183. Within the graphic art and modern art markets, along with Vollard, Georges
Petit was another exception, an art dealer who began to publish color etchings in the early 1900s,
although he had established his gallery in the 1880s. In the twentieth century, the dealer Henri Petiet
continued Vollard’s publishing practice following his sudden death in a car accident in 1939. For more on
Vollard and Petiet, see Clara Roca, ed., Édition Limité: Vollard, Petiet, et l’estampe des maîtres (Paris:
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris, 2021).
290
He did not have exclusive contracts with his artists, and some, including Picasso, André Derain, and
Maurice de Vlaminck, moved to other dealers such as Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. When this did happen,
Vollard nevertheless still benefited from his colleagues’ promotion of these artists’ work because he often
had his own stockpile of their art that then became increasingly in demand among clients. See Dumas,
“Ambroise Vollard,” 12.
291
See Una E. Johnson, Ambroise Vollard, Éditeur: Prints, Books, Bronzes (New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 1977), 22; Rebecca Rabinow, “Vollard’s Livres d’Artiste,” in Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise
Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006), 197-212.
174
description of his publishing. In his memoir, Vollard writes of his budding interest in print
publishing, noting his immediate fascination with paper: “Little by little the idea [of becoming a
publisher] took root in my mind. I could not see a fine sheet of paper without saying to myself:
‘How well type would look on it!’ And if I had any hesitations, it was only whether to publish
prose or verse.”
292
In spite of his commitment to detail and financial investment in creating
luxury objects, his print albums and livres de peintre did not sell well at the time of their
publications; Vollard lost money on these projects, a fact that Johnson uses to underscore their
status as “extravagant, highly personal interests.”
293
Even decades later when his reputation as a
publisher was considerably stronger, the prices his books and albums reached still did not cover
the cost of their production.
294

Though Vollard evidently cultivated a robust interest in the graphic arts as well as in the
more niche elements of printmaking, his choice to commission prints only by contemporary
artists demands a closer consideration and re-contextualization. As Rabinow notes, the publisher
was intrigued by how painters expressed their ideas in a graphic medium, whether through a
book or print. Another incentive, however, was undoubtedly Vollard’s ability to market the
reputations of artists through the more affordable and widespread circulation of their work in the
graphic arts.
295
Indeed, the market for his print albums included dealers and collectors of

292
Vollard, Souvenirs d’un marchand de tableaux, 304.
293
Johnson, Vollard Editeur, 22.
294
Rabinow, “Vollard’s Livres d’Artiste,” 206.
295
Vollard’s dealings in both painting and print recalls the business of Goupil & Cie. Established in 1829
in Paris, Goupil had branches across the globe by the 1840s, including offices in London and New York.
Goupil sold paintings by the leading artists of the period, including Paul Delaroche, Horace Vernet, and
Jean-Léon Gérôme, and obtained the rights to reproduce their paintings in print. Recognizing and
capitalizing on the potential to circulate these artists’ work in print, the firm commissioned reproductions
in various formats, including engraving, lithography, photography, and photogravure. Goupil also sold
painted reproductions in smaller sizes. The firm thus offered buyers various options at different prices,
making the artwork accessible to a wider clientele and thus disseminating art and building the reputations
175
paintings as well as fellow print dealers. Vollard’s account records include a list of potential
subscribers for his 1896 album; print dealers, such as Edmond Sagot, appear, but the first names
listed are dealers and collectors of paintings, including Eugène Blot, Georges Viau, and
Ferdinand Dufau.
296
In other words, Vollard hoped that these prints might entice the same
collectors who previously bought paintings by the artists.
Increasing interest in the role of modern art dealers has surfaced in the history of art, yet
scholars have thus far overlooked the construction of the limited edition art print in relation to
the burgeoning market for modern art in the late nineteenth century.
297
As a dealer of
contemporary art, Vollard sought new means to publicize the avant-garde artwork he was selling.
Vollard’s publishing endeavor suggests that he saw the possibility that the graphic arts could be
used as publicity to better circulate their names and build their reputations. Although other
dealers such as Durand-Ruel had exhibited prints, Vollard continued to publish them, making
print albums and books a central part of his business by interweaving them with his exhibitions
and sales. These prints—mobile, multiple, and inexpensive—offered his clients a work by the
artist for a much lower price than paintings by the same figures. Through his commitment to
color lithography above other printmaking processes and his longtime collaboration with Clot,
Vollard established a network of production, one that would prove critical to the growth of the

of the artists whose paintings the firm also sold. See Hélène Lafont-Couturier, et al. Gérôme and Goupil:
Art and Enterprise (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2000).
296
For the note in Vollard’s record, see Vollard Archives, MS 421 (4,4), fol. 68, 70, Centre de
Documentation, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. For more discussion on Vollard’s potential subscribers and
buyers, see Pratt and Druick, “Vollard’s Print Albums,” 191, 196.
297
Recent museum exhibitions have looked extensively at the role of art dealers, including a show on
Durand-Ruel at the Musée d’Orsay in 2015 and an exhibition on Vollard at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in 2006. The latter included sections on Vollard’s prints and books, but these objects were framed as a
separate endeavor he undertook. A 2021 exhibition at the Petit Palais, Éditions Limité: Vollard, Petiet, et
l’estampe des maîtres, promises to address Vollard’ publishing practice. See Roca, Édition Limité.
Typically, however, scholars have focused on art prints or the art market as separate discourses.
176
art market. In order for art color lithographs to succeed as a profitable artform, however, they
had to be marketed as products of a singular artist to ensure their originality. They also had to be
distinguished from commercial, reproductive prints, particularly chromos. The construction of
the limited edition would ensure that these associations would be veiled.

The Singular Maker
Pierre Bonnard’s Maison dans la cour, a lithograph printed in four colors, is part of
Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris, an album of twelve original color lithographs by the artist
that Vollard published in 1899. [Figure 4.2] The lithograph frames a view from an open window,
capturing the soft tones of a quintessentially Parisian rooftop scene. The orange of four chimneys
stands out against the cream colored paper and the subtle beige and brown shades of the building
windows and roofs. Bonnard’s rectangular border gestures towards the shape of the stone from
which it was printed. In the lower right hand corner, beneath the windowsill and outside of the
printed image, he signed his name and numbered the print in graphite. The number—“no. 63”—
marks the print’s limited edition status, in this case out of 100. The signature stands as evidence
of the artist’s hand and attests to its authenticity as an original artwork. The album emerged from
Clot’s atelier, and though the master printer was intimately involved in the conception of color
and the production of each of the twelve prints, he did not include his name anywhere in the
album. Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris thus entered the art market as a product of a singular
maker, the artist Bonnard.
The practice of inscribing the artist’s name by hand was typical of limited edition art prints
and illustrated artist books, known as livres d’artiste or more specifically livres de peintre,
printed by Clot and published by Vollard in the late nineteenth century. Once the printer had
177
produced all of the prints in an edition, artists signed each final color lithograph under the printed
image, typically at bottom right. Rather than include their names or initials in the printed image,
they signed by hand in graphite, making it more difficult to copy or forge.
298
Artists signed each
print by hand to indicate its status as an artwork and to suggest that each impression was slightly
different from others pulled from the same stone. The omission of the printer’s name in the color
art print, however, deliberately deviated from established printing practices, both historical and
contemporary.
In the long history of print, the presence of multiple signatures acknowledged the multi-
authorial, collaborative aspect of printmaking. As Lisa Pon notes in her study of the relationship
between the painter and the engraver in the early modern period, a print’s inscriptions are
significant; a print that bears multiple signatures permits, and even welcomes, an examination of
the network of people behind its production. In other words, they “signal collaboration.”
299
In
reproductive engraving, the names of all participants in the production of a printed image often
appeared on its surface. The publisher’s name followed the label “excudit”; “invenit”
acknowledged the inventor or artist of the original image; and “sculpsit” signaled the printmaker
who engraved or incised the plate.
300
In early modern printmaking, the printer’s name declared

298
This practice became established earlier in the nineteenth century by critics and publishers involved in
the etching revival of the 1860s and Impressionist printmaking of the 1870s and 1880s. In 1863, the critic,
bibliophile, and historian Alfred Sensier encouraged artist Jean-François Millet to dedicate by hand—in
this case, a form of artist signature—and number a small edition of ten etchings the artist had produced.
See Michel Melot, The Impressionist Print, trans. Caroline Beamish (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1996 [1974]), 85. As Antonia Lant notes in her study of Impressionist printmaking, the first artist to
combine these strategies of annotating, numbering, and signing with consistency was Camille Pissarro,
who began these practices in 1879. Pissarro adopted such strategies in order to distinguish his handmade
prints from mechanically produced prints, such as heliogravure, a photographic process that incorporated
etching. Lant, “Purpose and Practice,” 18.
299
Lisa Pon, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 12.
300
Ibid., 77.
178
his translation of a painting through the black-and-white lines of an engraving.
Despite increasing value placed on the work of peintres-graveurs and original over
reproductive prints in the nineteenth century, the printer’s name continued to appear on original
prints. For instance, in the etching revival in the 1860s, during which artists such as James
McNeill Whistler and Édouard Manet experimented in the medium, the printer was typically
noted in some capacity in the final print. From the 1860s and onwards, the printer would
frequently be mentioned, their name following “Imp.,” meaning printed. The early years of
reproductive lithography also carried over this traditional method of noting the network of
participants in the history of print, wherein the print house would often be noted as “Litho. de…”
Vollard’s publications thus overtly deviated from this long-established convention, aligning the
color lithograph with a singular maker and contributing to the establishment of a new category of
artist.
Omitting the printer’s name was a marketing strategy aimed at distinguishing and
codifying the original color lithograph as a new type of print, materially different even from
similar images emerging in more established commercial formats such as posters, books, and
journal illustrations. A closer look at a range of color lithographs designed by Bonnard
demonstrates the different formats and corresponding signature practices. Bonnard worked
across the graphic arts, designing posters, individual prints, full print suites, illustrated books,
and sheet music; between 1889 and 1902, he produced over 250 lithographs.
301
Vollard
commissioned many color lithographs from Bonnard, including prints for the albums of 1896
and 1897, the album suite Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris (1899), and illustrations for the
livres de peintre Parallèlement (1900) and Daphnis et Chloé (1902). The names of the printer or

301
Colta Ives, Helen Gianbruni, and Sasha M. Newman, Pierre Bonnard: The Graphic Art (New York:
Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1989).
179
print house appear on some, but not all, of this work. As we have seen, Clot’s name did not
appear on the prints for Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris or on the other individual prints
Bonnard contributed to Vollard’s group albums.
Within the commercial realm of chromolithography, however, the printer or print house
was almost always noted on the print’s surface, as was the case in posters. In the context of these
more established publishing practices, Clot’s name appeared in several instances, such as on the
poster for Vollard’s exhibition [Figure 4.1] and in the colophon of Vollard’s books. For example,
in the colophon for the 1900 publication Parallèlement, Clot’s name is listed along with a notice
of the original status of Bonnard’s lithographs and information regarding the type of press
(hand). [Figure 4.3] Clot’s name also appeared in a section detailing bibliographic information,
such as the book’s date, means, and location of production. The mention of his press signaled to
collectors that the book was pulled by hand on a small, manual press, rather than on the large
steam-powered presses used by commercial print firms. Highlighting the distinction between
Clot’s manual work and the mechanical nature of commercial production aimed to reinforce the
difference between these original color lithographs and chromos. The colophon credits Clot for
his participation in the material and technical aspects of the publication, though it does not
acknowledge him as a collaborator in the creation of Bonnard’s lithographs.
302

As we have seen, Clot also reproduced extant artworks, and in these cases, his name
appeared in particular contexts, again crediting him only for his technical involvement. For

302
As explained in chapter 3, even his involvement in the production of illustrations for Le Jardin des
supplices, for which he made copies of Auguste Rodin’s watercolors, Clot is listed in the colophon rather
than on the title page. Unlike the books published around the same time featuring original lithographs by
Bonnard, Clot’s lithographs after Rodin (d’après Rodin) qualify as reproductive prints. Today, an
impression of one of Clot’s copies sits in the Atelier Clot, its frame bearing the name of Clot, the
chromolithographic artist. Clot could thus claim recognition for his role in translating Rodin’s watercolors
into print, although not in the case of Bonnard’s original prints.
180
instance, his name appeared in the traditional format on a print by Maurice Denis, Nativité, in the
Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1907. [Figure 4.4] Here the journal acknowledges Clot’s involvement
through reference to his print firm, “Imp. d’Art Clot.” This inclusion might be explained by the
format of the journal, which typically featured the name of the firm that produced a print.
Additionally, unlike print publications putting forth original artist prints, the journal lists the
print as a “lithographie originale de M. Maurice Denis d’après son tableau.” In other words, the
caption claims that the lithograph is “original,” meaning Denis designed the image. Yet the
Gazette des Beaux-Arts includes a caption with the term d’après, or after, which signals the
print’s relationship with an extant artwork and thus Clot’s involvement in translating the source
into lithographic form. Clot, however, primarily receives credit for the print’s technical
production.
In contrast, Clot’s name did not appear when the prints were meant to circulate as
“original” artworks, rather than reproductions. By omitting the printer’s name and thus
downplaying the collaborative aspect of lithographic production, Vollard could market these
prints as original artworks despite the printer’s significant contributions. As previously explored,
Clot’s involvement complicated the distinction between originality and reproduction in this
period. Debating the merits of original prints over commercial (read, according to them, as
reproductive) prints, critics understood the “original” print to be an artwork designed and carried
out by an artist specifically in a print medium rather than a reproduction of an extant artwork. In
his 1893 preface for Marty’s L'Estampe originale, the critic Roger Marx argues that a print
reached the status of an artwork because of the original idea behind its creation. According to the
critic, as long as the artist’s conception for the print was original, its status as a multiple was less
important. Above all, his priority was to distinguish the original prints he championed from
181
reproductive prints. He writes,
What would be the use henceforth of insisting on what differentiates an original print from
a reproductive engraving? We are forbidden to make any comparison between the one and
the other. In the former case, the subject and form burst forth simultaneously from one
strike; in the latter, on the contrary, the skill of the interpreter replaces invention, and the
artist declines in rank from that of creator to that of copyist.
303

The comparison between original and reproductive print, according to Marx, is far from a
worthwhile endeavor given their allegedly dramatic difference. Yet the critic does go on to
compare them, presenting the original print as the crystallization of the artist’s gesture and
creative process and disregarding the reproductive print as a product of the “copyist” whose rote
skill replaces the artist’s creative impulse. Terms such as “invention” and the oppositional
framing of “creator” and “copyist” evidence the lens through which contemporary viewers and
collectors likely understood a work as an artistic product made through the autographic markings
of the artist. Marx prized the artist’s gesture, which he felt offered insight into the artist’s inner
feelings and impulses. A reproductive printer, he argued, does not exude the spontaneous gesture
of “original” art. Because Marx was writing about all forms of original printmaking—woodcut,
intaglio, and lithography—his text does not openly engage with the problem of the printer and
reproduction in the production of original color lithographs.
In his 1898 book La Lithographie originale en couleurs, André Mellerio does address
color lithography through the history of color within the medium, explaining its role in the
reproduction of extant artworks, which the critic found harsh and “inartistic.”
304
He locates the

303
Roger Marx, Preface to L’Estampe originale, trans. Judith Colton, in L’Estampe originale: A
Catalogue Raisonné, eds. Donna M. Stein and Donald H. Karshan (New York: Museum of Graphic Art,
1970), 15-16.
304
Mellerio made a deliberate rhetorical choice in labeling original prints as “lithographie originale en
couleurs,” rather than “chromolithographie,” using specific language to distinguish original from
commercial prints. André Mellerio, La Lithographie originale en couleurs (Paris: L’Estampe et l’affiche,
1898), trans. Margaret Needham, in Phillip Dennis Cate and Sinclair Hitchings, The Color Revolution:
Color Lithography in France, 1890-1900 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Art Gallery, 1978),
182
break between the modern art print and reproductive chromolithograph in the artistic posters of
Chéret, which were “no longer a facsimile reproduction of just any original work in color, but a
personal conception, something realized for its own sake.”
305
As did his contemporaries,
Mellerio saw Chéret’s color poster as influential to the work of artists exploring color
lithography because of the original intention behind the designs. The mechanical nature of
lithography and the fact that each print exists in multiples were of less concern to Mellerio
because he, like Marx, found the creative impulse to produce an artwork in the medium of
lithography to be of primary significance.
306

While critics acknowledged the importance of an intimate working relationship between
printer and artist, they also saw Clot’s collaboration and deft handling of industrial techniques as
a threat to the perceived originality of the art prints as products of a singular maker. In order for
Vollard to market these color lithographs as “original,” they had to be seen as autographic,
creative gestures of an individual artist. The omission of Clot’s signature, therefore, was one key
way of erasing color lithography’s associations with collaborative work and industrial process.

The Limited Edition
The artist’s signature was only one of the various marketing tools that signaled a print’s
status as an original, limited edition color lithograph. In addition to the artist’s name signed in
graphite—and the absence of the printer’s name on the print’s surface—the network of dealer-
publisher, artist, and printer developed other strategies to dissociate their color lithographs from
lithography’s commercial connotations, and specifically from the industrial training of someone

77-97.
305
Ibid., 80.
306
For a more detailed analysis of Marx’s and Mellerio’s texts, see Iskin, “The Color Print: Art in the Age
of Lithography,” The Poster, 127-143.
183
like Clot. Vollard was aware that Clot employed industrial techniques to produce luxury objects,
so the dealer-publisher took additional steps to veil these objects’ industrial aspects and fabricate
art market value for the color lithographs he published. Vollard commissioned prints and livres
de peintre that Clot printed in limited runs, typically 100 or 150 for prints and 150 or 200 for
books. For instance, Clot pulled only 100 impressions of Bonnard’s lithographs for his album
Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris. Though, in theory, Clot could have continued to re-ink and
print from the stones, he limited the edition size to the agreed run, a number typically specified
prior to the project’s start.
307
Capping the edition size created an artificial sense of rarity in a
lithograph and distinguished the prints that emerged from Clot’s atelier from the large print runs
typical of commercial firms. In his practice of commissioning arbitrarily limited print runs,
Vollard may have intended to associate color lithography with the older, and more traditional,
preindustrial printmaking forms such as woodcut, etching, and even early lithography. By
aligning his publications with older print forms and earlier iterations of lithography, Vollard
marshaled historical print traditions to inject associations of luxury and rarity into his print
projects.
Prior to the invention of lithography, prints were inherently limited in terms of the size of
a possible print run because of material concerns and processes. The number of impressions a
woodcut, engraving, or etching could produce depended upon how quickly the wood or metal
plates wore down.
308
Woodcuts could produce hundreds, at times thousands, of prints before the
carved relief surface deteriorated and the raised pieces, especially those that were particularly

307
A contract between Vollard, Rodin, and Octave Mirbeau for their 1902 book, Le Jardin des supplices,
lists the number of editions in the print run at 150. It is possible that Clot and Vollard established other
such contracts, though none exist in the archives of either. Octave Mirbeau, Auguste Rodin, and
Ambroise Vollard, contract, 1899, Mirbeau (Octave), Archives Musée Rodin, Paris.
308
See Ad Stijnman, Engraving and Etching, 1400-2000: A History of the Development of Manual
Intaglio Printmaking Processes (Houten: Hes & De Graaf, 2012), 333.
184
thin, cracked.
309
Engraved plates passed through the press under considerable pressure; as the
plates degraded, the lines became too shallow for use after between one and a few thousand
prints.
310
The most delicate, etched plates did not require such deep incisions, so the plate’s burrs
therefore wore down quickly, after only a few hundred impressions. If an artist used drypoint, the
print run came to around a few dozen impressions.
311
The introduction of color also had an
impact on the size of a print run. Because of color separation, registration, and layering, color
complicated and raised the price of the printing process, thus contributing to the more limited
quantity of prints produced in color. This rarity was particularly the case with color mezzotint in
the eighteenth century.
312
Because of the mezzotint plate’s fragility and the complexity and
expense of printing, mezzotints were never produced in large numbers.
313
As a result, mezzotints
never required quantity control, nor did they ever attain an association with industrial, large-scale
production.
314

309
Susan Dackerman, Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Art Museums, 2011), 20.
310
Steel engraving became a popular solution to this problem and was used in the nineteenth century for
book illustration. See Richard Benson, The Printed Picture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2008),
36. A more detailed look at this is provided in Stijman’s Engraving and Etching (2012) wherein he
explains the variability in print runs based on the technique of the process (engraving, etching, drypoint,
aquatint, or mezzotint) and the material of the plate, copper plates yielding fewer impressions than steel.
Steel block plates, introduced in the early nineteenth century, can produce several hundred thousand
impressions, most comparable to lithographic print runs. Stijman, Engraving and Etching, 331-338.
311
Stijman, Engraving and Etching, 331-338.
312
See Kristel Smentek, “‘An Exact Imitation Acquired at Little Expense’: Marketing Color Prints in
Eighteenth-Century France,” in Colorful Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth-Century
France, ed. Margaret Morgan Grasselli (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2003), 9-21.
313
In many ways, the luxury, limited edition print albums and illustrated books produced in the late
nineteenth century resemble the high quality, but still affordable mezzotints of the eighteenth century. The
context, however, had dramatically changed, changing the significance of a limited edition print.
314
As print scholar Michel Melot notes, even in the eighteenth century, when the first limited edition
impressions appeared as engravings, publishers aimed to control print runs primarily to combat the spread
of forgeries. Publishers would ensure their buyers of limited edition status by insisting that the plate
would be destroyed post printing; yet the edition sizes nevertheless remained high, most falling between
700 and 1200 engravings, though engraved plates could produce several thousand impressions. Melot
locates the first instance of a canceled lithographic stone: in the 1860s, an announcement to subscribers of
the journal L’Artiste promised that the stone would be erased after the first 100 copies of Romantic artist
185
Limiting the edition of a lithographic print distinguished it from commercial lithographs
and created a sense of scarcity that helped to signal its status on the market as an original art
print. As discussed in chapter one, over the course of the nineteenth century, lithography became
associated with industrial production and large edition sizes. In the early years of lithography,
printers, using hand presses, could produce tens of thousands of impressions; by the end of the
nineteenth century, machine presses produced hundreds of thousands of color lithographs.
315
In
the second half of the nineteenth century, the introduction of mechanical steam presses and the
mass production of color ink also made it possible to print chromolithographs efficiently,
cheaply, and in large quantities. The sheer volume of chromolithographs printed in this period
denoted cheap and plentiful reproductions.
Prized above all for its ability to generate large print runs, lithography retained its
association with industrial production even as other media were taking its place, including the
halftone. Moreover, posters—even avant-garde posters—were produced using the same
techniques and materials as Vollard’s art prints. Nevertheless, intrigued by lithography for its
potential to represent his artists’ chromatic experimentations, Vollard devised ways to
distinguish his prints from posters and other chromolithographs as a desirable collector’s item.
He created a false scarcity by limiting the edition sizes with the intention of distinguishing art
color lithographs from the commercial chromolithographs that freely circulated in the public
sphere.
Vollard was not the first to think of marketing prints in limited editions; he drew on the
strategies used by other print publishers such as Alfred Cadart and André Marty. However,

Eugène Isabey’s lithographic drawings. See Melot, The Impressionist Print, 88.
315
See Michael Twyman, A History of Chromolithography: Printed Colour for All (London: British
Library, 2013), 225, 480-481.
186
Cadart’s practice, in particular, differed from Vollard’s in significant ways. The artists Cadart
worked with took up etching as a means to revive and carry on an historical, traditional
printmaking form, one with an illustrious past and a devoted following of collectors. In other
words, the medium itself had a deeply rooted history associated with a period predating
industrialization. As had been the case since Rembrandt’s practice in the seventeenth century,
etched plates yielded only a small number of impressions, the specific number depending on
process—whether the plate was marked with dry point, hard ground, or softground, among other
intaglio techniques. While Cadart insisted on the limited edition status of his prints, rarity was
already intrinsic to etching.
Artificially limiting an edition size took on new significance in color lithography, a
medium that featured centrally in the publications of both Marty and Vollard. Marty’s L’Estampe
originale and Vollard’s two early albums of prints by peintres-graveurs comprised a mix of print
media, including both black-and-white as well as color lithography, woodcut, and etching; color
lithography was most represented. Indeed, both Marty and Vollard may have also wished to link
the color lithographs in their albums to preindustrial printmaking and to the early days of
lithography, when edition sizes remained smaller. They evidently shared this ambition with their
contemporaries. Quoted by critic Émile Leclerc in 1897 in Revue des arts graphiques, Mellerio
discusses the need to limit the edition size of original prints, stating: “…from the point of view of
the process: because if a lithograph, for example, can render abundantly without losing its
quality, a drypoint sometimes only reaches a very small number.”
316
The lithograph, Mellerio
contends, must be produced in limited quantities in order to follow more closely the print run of
a drypoint etching. The writer, painter, and printmaker Louis Huvey echoes Mellerio’s sentiment

316
Mellerio quoted in Émile Leclerc, “Chronique,” Revue des arts graphiques: Gutenberg-journal, no.
264 (1897): 1-5.
187
in his 1904 book on lithography: “To give artistic lithography back its true place, to make it
flourish, the limitation of prints to a limited number of proofs is of capital importance.”
317
In
order for lithography to “flourish” as an art form, as he feels it had prior to industrialization,
Huvey advocates for the arbitrary limitation of print runs.
The need to distinguish art prints from commercial chromolithographs proved urgent
because the status of the color art print remained tenuous in the 1890s. In this period, collectors
still favored more established forms of printmaking, including etching and engraving, and
preferred black-and-white prints to color. The position of the color lithograph within the artistic
hierarchy was the subject of debate in the 1880s and 1890s, particularly amongst critics and
collectors concerned with elevating the status of the artistic poster. Ruth Iskin convincingly
characterizes the limited edition as a successful mechanism for instilling value into posters, but
she overlooks a key aspect of what constitutes a limited edition print: the involvement of a
master printer.
318
As argued earlier, the printer contributed to the objects’ perceived status as art
through his artisanal labor, the setting of his atelier, and his significant involvement in the
production, conception, and translation of color in lithography. In contrast to the process through
which posters were elevated to art via the efforts of critics and collectors, Vollard capitalized on
the techniques of industry—chromolithography—to create prints that entered the market as
luxury, fine art works from the outset. Because posters and art prints were closely tied during this
period, Vollard limited the edition size of his print publications to conceal their industrial aspects
and distinguish the luxury print from its commercial counterparts, including the poster.

317
Louis Huvey. La Lithographie d'art (Paris: Floury, 1904), 22.
318
See Iskin, “Les Maîtres des Affiches: Aura and Reproduction,” in The Poster, 145-170.
188
Signaling the Limited Edition
Although a print might have existed as a limited edition in material terms, its status
required signifiers that would alert collectors to its rarity. For his print albums and livres de
peintre, Vollard developed a set of what Willa Silverman calls “material signs of distinction”
that he borrowed from contemporary luxury book publishing as well as the fine art print trade.
319

Vollard employed various techniques to exhibit the prints’ limited edition status, including
canceling plates, numbering editions, and offering multiple tiers of paper quality. Each practice
contributed to the perception of the prints’ rarity and also created a sense of variation amongst
prints within the same edition. Although limited in edition size, prints from the same edition
nevertheless existed in multiples; numbering prints and offering them on different paper quality
materialized variation and individuality. In signaling the artificial rarity and variety of color
lithographs, the dealer-publisher not only veiled the industrial status of the lithographic process
but also entwined the medium with traditional printmaking forms.
One such promotional tool Vollard employed was the act of canceling a print, an extra step
to indicate the fabricated rarity of the print to the buyer. After a limited edition print run was
complete, a printer would “cancel” the plate, which involved marking the stone’s surface as a
means to destroy the image it contains. Once the plate was marked, the printer would then pull a
proof to serve as evidence of the print’s canceled status. [Figure 4.5] Publishers provided these
proofs as evidence to collectors, ensuring that no further proofs could be pulled from the stone at
a later date.
The practice of canceling plates was primarily intended to distinguish art prints from their
commercial counterparts. At the commercial firm of Lemercier, the walls of the imprimerie were

319
Willa Z. Silverman, The New Bibliopolis: French Book Collectors and the Culture of Print, 1880-
1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 108.
189
lined with shelves containing thousands of limestones, called maitrises, stored for later use.
[Figure 1.2] Each had on its side—like the spine of a book—a number that was easily visible to
workers; the numbers were also noted in a ledger that printers could consult when clients
requested a new batch of prints. For instance, the owner of a company that sells cheese would
have hired Lemercier printers to print their labels.
320
The maitrise with the label on it would then
be located, pulled from the shelves, and prepared for transferring. [Figure 4.6] A reporteur
would use transfer paper to copy the logo from the maitrise multiple times onto a large stone.
The batch of labels would be printed and delivered to the client, and then the stone would be
returned to its storage space on the wall. At a commercial firm, the stones were maintained for
constant reprinting. Vollard’s preference to cancel stones containing designs by artists was
perhaps a direct response to the practices used at commercial firms.
321

Pulling a proof of the canceled stone as evidence of a plate’s cancellation further
illustrates the practice as a largely performative strategy. Clot’s operation was a small one,
without thousands of stones lining the walls as at Lemercier. Clot likely owned only a small
number of stones as they were expensive and typically purchased in sets of five all in the same
grade or size.
322
He perhaps had several sets, but not a quantity sufficient to maintain an artist’s

320
My thanks to Christian Bramsen for explaining this practice to me using as an example a stone
containing a cheese wrapper logo, originally from Lemercier [Figure 4.6]. Christian Bramsen (master
printer, Atelier Clot, Bramsen & Georges, Paris) in discussion with the author, January 21, 2019.
321
The Imprimerie Clot did not typically print posters, with the exception of Bonnard’s exhibition poster
for Les Peintres-graveurs, 1896 [Figure 4.1].
322
According to Bramsen, a set of five stones would have cost about the same as a farm horse. A set of
higher quality stones also determined the cost. Limestones were categorized as yellow, blue, or grey
depending on the depth at which they were pulled from the quarry. Blue, which were from the lowest
depths of the quarry, were the oldest whereas a yellow was higher up and thus newer. The density and
texture of blue stones, Bramsen explained, made them ideal for lithographic crayons. Christian Bramsen
(master printer, Atelier Clot, Bramsen & Georges, Paris) in discussion with the author, March 17, 2019.
Michael Twyman discusses lithographic stones at length, explaining that the cost of stones depended on
weight, quality, and transportation to the buyer, as limestones typically came from the Solnhofen region
of Bavaria. See Twyman, A History of Chromolithography, 447-450.
190
design indefinitely on one—or an entire set—of his stones’ surfaces.
323
Therefore, soon after the
conclusion of an edition’s printing, he would have needed to remove the images by grinding
down the stones’ surface in order to reuse the stones. Vollard references this practice in a 1912
letter to Clot in which he mentions the stones that the printer plans to erase. The letter
characterizes a practice that had long been established between the publisher and printer. Vollard
writes, “Prepare [the stones to be erased] for printing so that we can print a few canceled
proofs.”
324
He is aware that the stones have already been “canceled,” as in marked, but the
inevitable erasure itself would not have been sufficient to Vollard as the dealer-publisher would
have wanted visual proof that the design was ruined. He asks the printer to prepare the canceled
stones to be printed before being ground so that they can have visual and material evidence of
the print’s canceled—and thus limited—status.
Numbering each impression also helped make a print’s limited edition status visible. The
prints that comprised Vollard’s albums typically have a number on their surfaces that indicates
their placement within an edition of a set number of copies. [Figure 4.2] Along with their
signatures, artists wrote the number in graphite by hand beneath the printed image, either next to
or on the opposite side of their name. The number serves as an indicator of both the artist’s hand
in the production of the final prints and the limited quantity of the prints pulled. Additionally,
collectors considered placement within a print run an important factor; the lower the number

323
As discussed in chapter one, Clot rented out stones to artists, charging them if they left their designs on
stones. Clot probably charged artists not only because he had a limited supply but also because of the
effects of time on the stone’s surface. As Bramsen explained, because it is porous, the longer an image
remained on the stone the deeper the grease on its surface would sink. As a result, the printer would have
to grind more of the surface down to reuse it. Between each use, the printer typically grinds a stone’s
surface down about ¼ mm. Christian Bramsen (master printer, Atelier Clot, Bramsen & Georges, Paris)
in discussion with the author, March 17, 2019.
324
Ambroise Vollard to Auguste Clot, 16 Oct. 1912, Fonds Auguste Clot, Bibliothèque nationale de
France, Paris.
191
within an edition size of 100, the more valuable a print might be at a later date.
The association of a low number’s particular value came from etching and especially the
writing of Philippe Burty. Burty was an influential critic for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, where
he published reviews of the Salon. Beginning in the 1860s, he also wrote extensively in support
of the etching revival, contributing to L’Eau-forte en (1874-1881), which was published
annually.
325
For the 1875 issue, he published a text on the belle épreuve, arguing for the first
proof, which became known as the “artist proof,” as the closest to the artist’s creative process.
326

Because etching plates wore down over the course of printing, critics and collectors considered
earlier proofs in an edition—from a connoisseurial perspective—to be of a higher quality. In
lithography, however, as long as the printer consistently re-inked the stone, the impressions did
not vary dramatically and the stone did not necessarily show signs of wear after 100 copies; a
typical lithographic print run could reached the thousands. The artist’s practice of hand
numbering proofs, therefore, situated the art color lithograph within a longer history of
printmaking. Most importantly, numbering lithographs openly advertised their limited status, in
direct opposition to mass produced, and theoretically limitless, lithographs printed in very large
quantities.
Numbering by hand was not always a consistent process; sometimes prints published by
Vollard do not bear a number, and these are referred to as “unnumbered” prints. The lack of a
number, however, serves to differentiate the prints that do exhibit a number, bringing another
degree of rarity and variation to a limited edition series of prints. Sometimes the artist failed to
number; a more interesting scenario for the collector, however, is that unnumbered prints could
also indicate that the print was pulled as an artist proof, outside of the numbered edition. Because

325
Arnar, The Book as Instrument, 74-75, 317.
326
Philippe Burty, “La Belle épreuve,” L’Eau-forte en 1875 (Paris: Cadart, 1875), 7-13.
192
of the supposed proximity to the artist, these would have been more valuable. Indeed, the
inconsistency might not have been entirely unwelcome from Vollard’s perspective; differences
within an edition created new ideas of value between prints that otherwise appeared to be
multiples. This practice also aligned Vollard’s work with discourses surrounding the publication
of etching, for which critics, artists, publishers, and dealers believed in a distinction among
different impressions of the same plate. Variation within editions helped to rare-ify lithographs
further.
Vollard drew on similar “material signs of distinction” in his publication of books
illustrated by painters, in line with contemporaneous luxury book publishing practices. As Willa
Silverman notes, the luxury book was re-conceptualized in the late nineteenth century, when the
effects of industrialization on printed material were of great concern to bibliophiles, including
Octave Uzanne, who published, collected, and wrote extensively about luxury books. Silverman
locates overproduction as the central threat Uzanne perceived to book publishing.
327
The mass
production of books over the course of the nineteenth century was the result of several material
and technological changes: the production of paper made of wood pulp rather than cloth, more
complex printing presses, and the development of photomechanical processes, the latter which
Uzanne paradoxically championed in his livres de luxe. Additionally, the 1881 law of freedom of
the press relieved both publishers and sellers of books from operational licenses that had
previously been required. The increase in production was met with a growing demand for books
by a public that was becoming more literate owing to education reforms. As a result of these
developments, Uzanne observed a dramatic increase in quantity but a plummeting of cost and
quality, both in the material production of books and, according to Uzanne, in their content, with

327
Silverman, The New Bibliopolis, 31-35.
193
novels—typically associated with sentimentality and entertainment—more popular than the
intellectual genre of poetry. Uzanne responded directly to these perceived threats by publishing
livres de luxe in limited print runs, on luxury paper, and with high-quality illustrations and
typography.
328

In many ways, Vollard’s publishing practice was in line with those of figures such as
Uzanne; Vollard too aimed to distinguish his prints and books from commercial, mass produced
printed material. His goals, however, were driven by his business of selling artworks, particularly
to paintings collectors, in a growing art market.
329
Vollard distinguished his book publishing
practice by commissioning contemporary artists, rather than professional illustrators, to illustrate
texts by contemporary writers and poets. Within the niche world of livres de luxe, Vollard’s
books were specialized further, becoming known as livres de peintre. He also deviated from the
practice of his contemporaries in terms of format. His livres de peintre combined the formats of
the original print album and luxury illustrated book; his books were sold unbound, sometimes
with a suite of prints included at the end of a book, without text.
330

Vollard’s books and print albums are thus closely linked and therefore exhibit similar
rhetorical signifiers. His livres de peintre included a justification de tirage, a type of colophon
explaining the number of copies printed on various paper types. In the justification du tirage,
Vollard’s livres de peintre also include a number indicating their status as rare, luxury objects.
These numbers are either handwritten by the publisher or printer, or typed, sometimes in red to

328
Ibid., 108.
329
Indeed, Vollard’s books were not immediately popular amongst book collectors. Rebecca Rabinow
notes that Parallèlement, his first livre de peintre, did not initially sell well because it deviated from more
established forms of book publishing and illustration; in this work, Bonnard’s color lithographs illustrated
French poet Paul Verlaine’s poems, a combination out of sync with the more traditional pairing of wood
engraving with established, traditional texts. See Rabinow, “Vollard’s Livres d’Artiste,” 198-199.
330
Ibid., 197.
194
distinguish them from the rest of the type in black, as seen in Le Jardin des supplices. [Figure
4.7] In a feature more clearly labeled than the production of print albums and individual prints,
the justification de tirage helped to locate a particular book within the context of its print run.
Vollard’s justifications du tirage provide the books’ material information and evidence
that he invested great expense in the details of his print publications, such as ordering fine,
handmade paper. His choice of paper further associated his work with luxury print editions.
331

The thick and heavy paper he purchased was produced by paper manufacturers with illustrious
and long histories—including Arches, Masure et Perrigot, Van Gelder, and Canson Montgolfier,
among others. Printmakers had purchased paper from these sources for centuries, so Vollard’s
decision to use paper from these companies inserted his publications into the longer history of
print.
332
The choice was deliberate because, as receipts show, Vollard himself was responsible
for ordering the paper.
333
Unlike other aspects of the printmaking process that would have
remained squarely in the hands of the printmaker—including the purchase of ink, stones, and
other equipment—Vollard made paper his responsibility. Purchasing paper directly from paper
producers, he then had it delivered to his printers, including Clot, Jourde, and Fort.
334

Vollard was deeply invested in paper selection, at times even commissioning special
paper with customized watermarks. Clot and the typographers printed the livres de peintre Le
Jardin des supplices, Parallèlement, and Daphnis et Chloé on paper with customized watermarks

331
For more on Vollard’s interest in paper, see Johnson, Ambroise Vollard, Éditeur, 27-29.
332
In his 1906 book L'Imprimerie et les procédés de gravure au vingtième siècle, André Marty provides a
sweeping history of paper production, first in Egypt and China and then in Europe. Marty describes the
beginnings of paper making in the Vosges region of France at the “moulins d’Arches” in 1490. André
Marty, L'Imprimerie et les procédés de gravure au vingtième siècle (Paris: Chez l'auteur, 1906), 70.
333
The Vollard Archives include receipts from suppliers such as Canson Montgolfier, Papeteries Navarre,
Papeteries d’Arches, Perrigot-Masure, and Renaud & Textier. See Vollard Archives, MS 241 (8, 4) fol.
21; (8,21), fol. 1; (8,22), fol. 1-3; (8,23), fol. 57-62; (8,28), fol. 4, Centre de Documentation, Musée
d’Orsay, Paris.
334
See Vollard Archives, MS 241 (8,4), fol. 21 and (8,23), fol. 57-62, Musée d’Orsay.
195
bearing the name of each book. This practice is referenced in the colophon for Parallèlement,
which states, “le vélin du Hollande a été fabriqué spécialement par la Maison Van Gelder,
d’Amsterdam, avec le filigrane Parallèlement.” [Figure 4.3] In other publications, the paper’s
watermark bears Vollard’s name. Watermarks are not always immediately noticeable but are one
aspect of paper that a collector—someone interested in these signs—would know to look for
when inspecting a book. Such customization catered to a connoisseurial buyer who would have
appreciated the dealer-publisher’s attention to such details. The inclusion of watermarks also
helped prevent forgeries, ensuring that other publishers did not reprint Vollard’s luxury books.
This practice further connected his publishing practice with a longer, venerable history of
printing and book publishing as watermarks are a staple of book history.
335
This attention and
commitment to detail indicates the dealer-publisher’s desire to elevate his publications materially
above more inexpensively produced prints and popular books.
Vollard offered varying levels of luxury for the publication of a single book, also clearly
laid out in the justification du tirage. Although only 200 copies of Parallèlement were printed
overall—making any version purchased a limited edition, luxury object—Vollard also ensured
that there were additional tiers within the print run, based on the quality of paper on which each
book was printed. Vollard was intimately involved in paper selection and quality in his
publication, as is evident in the edition of Parallèlement. [Figure 4.8]
Justification du tirage.

Deux cents exemplaires numérotés.

Nos 1 à 10 sur chine chine, avec une suite de toutes les planches sans le texte.

335
Several reference books on watermarks aid collectors and scholars in identifying watermarks. See,
Charles Moise Briquet, Les Filigranes. Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur
apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600. Avec 39 figures dans le texte et 16,112 fac-similés de filigranes (New
York: Hacker Art Books, 1966); W. A. Churchill, Watermarks in Paper in Holland, England, France, etc.
in the XVII and XVIII Centuries and their Interconnection (Amsterdam: M. Hertzberger, 1967).
196
Nos 11 à 30 sur chine chine.
Nos 31 à 200 sur vélin de Hollande.

Toutes les planches ont été détruites.
336

The justification du tirage for Parallèlement notes that of the book’s two hundred copies,
numbers one through ten were printed on “chine” or China paper, a thin, delicate paper of a grey
or yellow hue often used in luxury printmaking. China paper absorbs ink well, making it ideal for
woodcut and intaglio printing as well as lithography. These first ten editions also included a
separate suite of Bonnard’s lithographs, printed without text and added to the end of the unbound
book. Numbers eleven through thirty were also printed on “chine” paper but did not include a
separate suite. The remaining editions were printed on wove Holland paper, offering a high
quality but more affordable option for buyers. When publishing a luxury livre de peintre, Vollard
created additional variety and rarity between copies of the same book.
Vollard offered multiple tiers of paper quality to align and distinguish his publications
from various traditional and nineteenth-century forms of print. In his etching albums, the
publisher Alfred Cadart offered tiers, one regular and one “deluxe.” Cadart offered fewer
impressions printed on papier de Hollande, a finer and more expensive paper. Vollard continued
this practice, often offering three tiers of paper, and different numbers of impressions for each.
Therefore, the more expensive, luxurious paper frequently also existed in fewer impressions,
adding the value of rarity as well as luxury material.
Although Vollard certainly aimed to associate his prints and books with both etching
practices and the luxury book world, he likely primarily offered multiple tiers of paper quality to
distinguish the color lithographs he published from commercial chromolithographs circulating in

336
Paul Verlaine, Parallèlement (Paris: Ambroise Vollard, 1900). Italics in the original.
197
this period.
337
Chromolithographic posters were typically printed on inexpensive, thin, and
ephemeral acidic paper. They did not survive long on the streets, pasted to walls and exposed to
the elements.
338
Vollard’s choice of luxurious and expensive paper thus served to demonstrate
material and visual distinction from posters. Furthermore, many trade cards, calendars, and other
chromolithographs in this period were printed on “coated” paper. As Michael Twyman explains,
this “chromo paper” was developed to solve the problem of color registration in large-scale
printing. Paper in printmaking typically needed to be dampened, so as to better take in ink. Damp
paper proved problematic in color printing, which required paper to pass through the press
multiple times. Each time paper was dampened, it expanded and then contracted. Thus, color
registration became challenging because the scale of this expansion and contraction was not
necessarily the same each time paper was dampened and printed. Machine-made “coated” paper
could be printed dry, thus avoiding the problems of inaccurate color registration.
339
It also had
the added benefit of having a glazed appearance, which was seen to add considerable liveliness
and brightness to chromolithographs. Practitioners lauded the benefits of coated paper. In his
1899 manual of lithography, Alfred Lemercier writes, “For chromolithography, we only release
heavily laminated paper; the purpose of laminating is to gloss the paper to prevent it from

337
In etching, the difference in paper quality suggested different qualities of impression. An etched plate
passes through the press under considerable pressure; the plate presses firmly into the paper, creating an
indentation on the paper where the plate pressed into its surface. Ink interacts differently with various
qualities of paper; Japan paper allowed for a higher quality printed image because of the way it absorbs
ink, as opposed to laid and wove paper. For more on paper and intaglio printing, see Stijnman, Engraving
and Etching, 259-260. The etching revival of the 1860s drew upon traditional printmaking practices, such
as Rembrandt’s experimentation with inking and paper. During printing, the artist manipulated his
materials and techniques to create various textures and tones in his etchings. The artists involved in the
etching revival carried on Rembrandt’s practice, employing different types of paper. See
Alison McQueen, The Rise of the Cult of Rembrandt: Reinventing an Old Master in Nineteenth-Century
France (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003), 237-238.
338
Iskin, The Poster, 155.
339
See Twyman, A History of Chromolithography, 517-524.
198
expanding too much during the printing process and for better printing.”
340
Given the
commercial associations of products released by such firms as Lorilleux and Lemercier,
Vollard’s choice of artisanal, expensive paper would have been yet another factor distinguishing
his color lithographs as works of art above the shiny chromos to which they were so closely tied
in terms of production.
Including handwritten signatures and numbers on individual prints as well as printing
them on different types of paper helped cultivate a perception of variation and rarity in prints;
these signifiers also indicated that they were “final” prints, meaning that they were part of the
limited edition print run produced by the printer following the trial proof process and the artist’s
sign off of bon à tirer. In developing his marketing strategy, Vollard borrowed several elements
from the long history of print and book publishing, fabricating signs that aligned his publications
with print practices predating lithography’s invention. Critics and collectors must have
recognized these associations. Discussing the program behind his new monthly publication,
L’Estampe et l’affiche, Mellerio, quoted in Revue des arts graphiques in 1897, describes some of
the necessary practices to create artist prints, including “intelligently limit[ing] the number of
proofs.”
341
He argues for creating a “system of artificial rarities” so that “an art print…cannot
dream of encompassing the same multitude of audiences as a popular image. This result…would
quickly lead to what is called, in a vulgarly expressive term, overuse.” In other words, in order to
avoid this “overuse,” Mellerio suggests that a lithograph be limited in edition sizes more
comparable to an etching in order to maintain quality and create more demand. Publishing prints

340
See Alfred Lemercier, La Lithographie française de 1796 à 1896 et les arts qui s’y rattachent. Manuel
pratique s’adressant aux artistes et aux imprimeurs (Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie, 1899), 115. Additionally,
the lithography treatise published by Charles Lorilleux et Cie in 1889 boldly states, “The printing of
chromos is always done on glazed papers.” See Traité de lithographie: Histoire, théorie, pratique (Paris:
Ch. Lorilleux et Cie: 1889), 125.
341
Leclerc, “Chronique,” 1-5.
199
and albums contemporaneously with Mellerio’s comments, Vollard undoubtedly drew on this
existing appeal of rarity and high quality, luxury materials to promote art color lithographs.

The Printer as Collector
Auguste Clot welcomed the dealer’s marketing strategies, supporting Vollard’s publicity
efforts by cultivating the art print’s association with a singular maker. Although their
contribution and involvement went uncredited through the absence of their signatures, printers
such as Clot nevertheless ultimately benefited from their erasure from the print’s surface. As
artists became increasingly well known, their prints became more valuable—a boon to the
printers who collected and sold them. Indeed, the collecting practices of printers themselves
contributed to the commercialization of the art color lithograph. Printers played an important role
in further developing the idea of variation in printmaking by collecting color models sketched by
artists, trial proofs, annotated proofs, and color progression proofs. This material emerged from
the complex processes of color selection and correction wherein the printer and the artist worked
closely together to envision and refine color. As explored in chapter two, color trial proofs
evidence the collaborative working relationship between printer and artist in the production of
color. Trial proofs, in other words, make visible the very collaborative nature and industrial ties
that the dealer-publisher, printer, and artist attempted to obscure and erase through marketing
tools. Printers, however, collected trial proofs and sold them alongside artist proofs, signed and
numbered prints, and prints dedicated by artists. They also expanded the market by collecting
and then offering for sale additional material emerging from the process, thus creating further
value for and around the artist’s print.
A 1919 auction catalogue illustrates the ways in which printers could benefit financially
200
from the marketing of these prints as objects made by singular artists.
342
[Figure 4.9 and 4.10]
Following a public exhibition the day prior, an auction of 205 prints from Auguste Clot’s
personal collection took place on June 13, 1919 at the Hôtel Drouot, the official auction house of
Paris since 1852. Modern art sales from the 1850s onward took place either in the art dealer’s
gallery or at the auction house, and although the two sites were closely interconnected, their
respective sale and speculation practices differed. At Drouot, artworks sold individually, after
experts—who were often art dealers hired by the auction house—examined, authenticated, and
valued them.
343
Dealers operated through a different method, often buying from an artist in bulk
and holding onto this stock as its value rose over time. Durand-Ruel introduced this speculative
practice in the 1860s, and later dealers continued it, including Vollard who bought up Cézanne’s
entire oeuvre in the mid-1890s.
344
At Drouot, experts examined artworks, setting an initial value
that could rise considerably during the auction. In turn, the prices at auction helped determine the
value of a dealer’s stock. Clot’s sale at Drouot in 1919 would have been complementary and
closely linked to Vollard’s business, in theory helping to raise the prices of Vollard’s holdings of
prints, paintings, and sculptures.
Clot may also have been encouraged to sell the collection at Drouot by way of his
relationship with the expert who assisted in the sale, Loys Delteil, a printmaker, critic, and

342
André Desvouges and Loys Delteil, “Collection de M.A.C. Vente du Vendredi 13 juin 1919 Hôtel
Drouot – Salle no. 7 Lithographies,” (Paris: Hôtel Drouot, 1919).
343
Nicholas Green writes that this role was somewhat arbitrary and did not require any specialized
training. See Nicholas Green, “Dealing in Temperaments: Economic Transformations of the Artistic Field
in France during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century,” Art History 10, no. 1 (March 1987), 62-63.
Furthermore, as Robert Jensen writes, the auction house was a meeting of “commercial speculation” and
“historical expertise” in the role of the expert. Though many galleries existed in the second half of the
nineteenth century, the dealers more closely connected to the Hôtel Drouot became the most well-known
and successful. For instance, the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel was an expert hired by Drouot, and his father
had been previously. See Jensen, Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1994), 51.
344
Ibid., 52-54
201
collector.
345
Delteil and Clot had known each other for some time, having corresponded
regarding specific technical questions about lithography that Delteil had in preparation for
various publications.
346
In his role as an expert, Delteil began to work on Drouot’s print sales
around 1898; he was involved in all aspects of the sale, inspecting collectors’ prints, valuing the
prints, writing and designing the catalogue, exhibiting the works publicly prior to the sale, and
overseeing the bidding.
347
As print scholar Britany Salsbury explores in her study of Delteil’s
career, Drouot had become an important site in the contemporary print market and its public
sales a meeting point for print collectors where they could socialize as well as purchase prints.
348

From his experience at Drouot and previously as a print dealer, Salsbury contends, Delteil
understood the contemporary print market and the value of rarity. For Clot’s sale, Delteil may
have been influential in the decision to include annotations alongside the listing of each print,

345
Additionally, considering the date of the sale, following World War I, Clot may have chosen to sell his
collection through the public auction house because Vollard was unavailable or otherwise preoccupied.
During World War I, Vollard had closed his gallery, though he was able to publish a few livres de peintre.
The books Vollard published were illustrated with woodcuts and etchings—Les Amours de Pierre de
Ronsard (1915) with etchings by Émile Bernard, Les Fleurs du Mal (1916) with woodcuts by Bernard,
and Oeuvres de François Villon (1918) with woodcuts by Bernard. Business therefore may have been
slow for Clot. The printer may have needed additional income, while Vollard may not have been willing
to venture into this sale. Additionally, by this point, the dealer no longer held group exhibitions of
peintres-graveurs as he had in the late 1890s, focusing instead on retrospective exhibitions of individual
artists.
346
Loys Delteil to Auguste Clot, 6 July 1911, Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF; Delteil to Clot, 8 May 1918,
Fonds Auguste Clot, BnF. Delteil is also likely the artist of the portrait of Clot at work in his atelier,
discussed in chapter one [Figure 1.12].
347
Delteil was hired by the Hôtel Drouot as a print expert in the late 1890s and remained there until his
death in 1927. In addition to his role as a print connoisseurial expert, Delteil was a print scholar. Between
1906-1926, Delteil published 31 volumes of Le Peintre-graveur illustré, an illustrated guide to
contemporary prints. Drawing on the structure introduced by Bartsch in the early nineteenth century,
Delteil expanded Bartsch’s format by adding biographical information, detailed information about prints
(such as dimensions, edition, and medium) as well as illustrations of prints. He offered the publication at
different price points, in regular and deluxe versions. For more on Delteil, see Britany Salsbury, “Loys
Delteil (1869-1927): Community and Contemporary Print Collecting in Fin-de-Siècle France,” in
Collecting Prints, Posters, and Ephemera: Perspectives in a Global World, eds. Ruth E. Iskin and Britany
Salsbury (London and New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020), 48.
348
Ibid.
202
engendering a greater sense of variety and individuality for the prints.
Indeed, the catalogue for the sale of Clot’s collection is detailed, offering insight into the
types of objects sold that day. Organized by artist, the catalogue lists the title of each print as
well as information regarding any variation or distinguishing qualities. [Figure 4.11] Some
include the notation “épreuve d’essai,” meaning that the impression is a trial proof pulled during
the color correcting process, prior to the artist’s bon à tirer. Many entries include the description
“très belle épreuve,” or “very beautiful impression,” suggesting the high quality of that particular
impression. Notes indicate whether the print is signed, annotated, or dedicated; if they were, their
catalogue entry would include “signée,” “avec des annotations,” or “avec dédicace.” Other
entries include information regarding paper quality, stating the print is “sur chine volant” or “sur
japon.” The range of supplemental information included for each print indicates the interest in
and value of variation in color lithography. Although they technically exist in multiples, each of
these prints is presented as an individual artwork, distinguished by its particularities. The
inconsistency evident in the variety of notations following each print’s title adds to the sense of
rarity in difference.
Clot helped introduce variety and rarity into the market for color lithographs in his sale of
trial proofs. Many of the trial proofs produced during the process of color correction would have
been thrown out, the paper reused, returned to the artist, or as suggested by the scale of Clot’s
holdings, left in the printer’s atelier after the bon à tirer was pulled and the rest of the edition
printed. Clot, however, instead held onto this material, which sometimes also included sketches
by the artist prepared as a color model and as a starting off point for Clot. Although these trial
proofs also serve as evidence of the collaborative relationship between the printer and artist,
when presented under the name of the artist alone, they become associated with the creative
203
process of a singular maker.
Collectors’ interest in these often rare prints likely informed Clot and Delteil’s inclusion
of trial proofs in the auction catalogue. Indeed, interest in artists’ trial proofs was not a new
phenomenon in the nineteenth century and, in fact, dates to the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Print scholar Peter Parshall has traced the emergence of a system for classifying and
valuing print proofs, noting the vague and unresolved relation between a “proof state” and
artistic finish.
349
Changing standards of valuation, he explains, meant that the artist’s creative
process became equally significant as more traditional notions of aesthetic finish. Printmakers
typically kept proofs for their records, either as a reminder of the process or as a tool for
teaching. By the latter half of the seventeenth century, due to growing interest in the artistic
process, trial proofs became more valuable to collectors; they were seen as tied to the artist’s
process and creativity, evidence of how the artist imagined, reacted, and adjusted the print.
350

Variation between impressions continued to be an important aspect of original
printmaking, particularly for artists working in etching in the nineteenth century. Antonia Lant
has examined the industrialization of etching practices in the form of hybrid intaglio and
photographic processes adopted by industry, situating artists’ efforts to promote the “original”
and limited edition status of etchings as a means to differentiate them from industrially produced
prints.
351
One means for doing this was to etch the plate and then ink it differently each time the

349
Peter Parshall, “Unfinished Business: The Problem of Resolution in Printmaking,” in The Unfinished
Print, ed. Peter Parshall (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2001), 13.
350
Artists such as Rembrandt took advantage of this shift; tapping into this market, he printed numerous
impressions of trial proofs for sale. Towards the end of his career, Rembrandt developed greater sense of
variety in his working proofs, deliberating making dramatic changes between state proofs and pulling an
inconsistent number of impressions of each stage of the plate. He further distinguished his impressions
through careful inking and by printing on different types of paper, strategies of creating variation and
value that were then marshaled centuries later.
351
Lant, “Purpose and Practice,” 21.
204
plate moved through the press.
352
Camille Pissarro, sometimes working closely with Edgar
Degas, who had first introduced him to printmaking, would experiment in series, inking the plate
in different manners to achieve different, often atmospheric, effects in the scene at hand.
Pissarro, Lant notes, exhibited these “states” as a series; instead of considering the different
states as part of a review process leading up to the final version, Pissarro displayed them
together, reinforcing the idea that each impression of a print has its own value.
353
Pissarro’s
practice was supported by Burty’s insistence on variability and uniqueness in printmaking,
presenting it as a process of artistic experimentation rather than a means to produce “multiple
originals.”
Although variation in impressions became important to the revival of etching as a
medium for original artistic work, it was less possible in lithography. Painters working in etching
typically grasped the process better than artists working in lithography, and thus were able to
manipulate their plates. While they frequently worked with master printers, such as Auguste and
Eugène Delâtre, in the inking process, artists were intimately involved in all aspects of the
printmaking process. The chemical complexity of lithography, as well as the printer’s handling
of printing ink, meant that painters working in the medium were less involved in the printing of
an edition after the bon à tirer. Most of the experimentation and deliberation occurred in the
printer’s selection and mixing of ink and preparation of the stone’s surface. Once the image was
finalized, the act of printing was handed over to the master printer who would ink and print an
edition.
Color lithographic trial proofs, as we have seen, reveal the collaborative nature of the

352
For instance, Camille Pissarro might have “battered” the plate using a bevel or varnish, experimenting
with textures on the plate’s surface. Ibid.
353
Ibid., 23.
205
medium and the printer’s important role in their production. Their presentation under the name
of a single artist, however, as they appeared in the Drouot catalogue, served to reframe the
process on display and associate it with notions of individual creativity and originality. Through
his amassing of a collection of trial proofs, Clot contributed to the idea of the art print as a
product of a singular maker. The greatest number of prints and prints with the most variety are
listed under the names of artists with whom the printer worked most extensively, including
Bonnard, Denis, Alexandre Lunois, Odilon Redon, Paul Signac, and Édouard Vuillard. Clot held
onto various types of proofs produced in collaboration with these artists, including color
progression and annotated proofs. For instance, a print by Bonnard is listed as “Une Rue de
Paris. Epreuve d’essai, annotée” and another by Signac is listed as “Les Blanchissseuses. Deux
épreuves d’essai, imp. en couplers, une avec de nombreuses annotations manuscrites.”
354
[Figure
4.12] The trial proofs, particularly those heavily annotated by the artist’s hand, appear to offer,
according to the catalogue, invaluable insight into the artist’s creative process, rather than insight
into the technical and collaborative process of the print’s production.
Such proximity to the artist’s process and creativity is highlighted elsewhere in the
catalogue, even for those prints not listed as trial proofs. Although Vollard encouraged his artists
to number impressions by hand in graphite, none of the prints in Clot’s collection includes a
reference to numbering. Given the detailed notes on other prints listed, the prints in Clot’s
possession were likely not numbered. The lack of numbering suggests that the prints were
probably versions that existed outside of the published edition size. Most of the prints in Clot’s
collection are marked “très belle épreuve,” and although the description refers to the quality of
the impression, the term also signals that the prints were in fact artist proofs. Made valuable by

354
Desvouges and Delteil, “Collection de M.A.C.,” 4, 22.
206
Burty’s aforementioned writing on the belle épreuve, artist proofs are the first impressions of a
print pulled after the bon à tirer and prior to the numbered editions.
355
A letter from Lautrec
sheds light on this practice, common in the period, and explains how the artist proofs ended up in
Clot’s possession. In 1892, the artist wrote to Arthur Huc, owner of the La Dépêche de Toulouse
newspaper, concerning proofs for the artist’s lithograph Le Pendu.
356
[Figure 4.13] The
lithograph was designed for the newspaper as publicity for A. Siegel’s book Les Drames de
Toulouse (1892). The lithograph was printed by Edward Ancourt and Lautrec’s letter is inscribed
on Ancourt stationary. [Figure 4.14] Along with an impression of the print, Lautrec writes, “I
pulled thirty, plus three artist proofs, so one for you, the other for Ancourt, and the other for
me.”
357
Outside of the published edition of thirty lithographs, therefore, Lautrec and Ancourt
pulled three additional belles épreuves for the artist, printer, and publisher. This practice, typical
of print publishing, explains how Clot amassed a large collection of artist proofs. Whether or not
these artist proofs were included in the printer’s fee or contract, the prints sold by Clot were rare
examples, souvenirs available only to those intimately involved in their production. For
collectors interested in rarity, Clot’s sale offered luxury prints most closely associated with the
artist and with the process of making.
358

The Hôtel Drouot catalogue reveals other elements of Clot’s role in fabricating value
around the variation of prints. Prints dedicated to Clot by the artists with whom he collaborated,
typically souvenirs intended to acknowledge the printer and thank him for their collaborative

355
See Burty, “La Belle épreuve,” 7-13.
356
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to Arthur Huc, undated, Lot 350, Sale “Les Collections Aristophil chez
Artcurialon,” 2 April 2019, Hôtel Drouot. My thanks to Julia Frey Nolet for alerting me to the sale of this
letter.
357
Ibid.
358
This practice continues to be an important aspect of fine art printing, which includes a large array of
notations to explain the position of a print within—or outside of—a print run.
207
enterprise, were valuable because of the inclusion of personalized messages. These prints
included short notes, such as Maurice Denis’s 1897 lithograph Le Reflet dans la fontaine,
dedicated to Clot with the inscription, “To M. Clot, souvenir of a laborious operation.”
359
[Figure
2.1] Even on artist proofs, therefore, additional signs of the artist’s hand such as signatures and
dedications created greater value for the prints with such inscriptions. When he was working
with Clot in the late 1890s, Denis had already started developing a strong reputation as a member
of the Nabis. Clot held on to this, as well as other dedicated prints, forming his own collection,
which continued to rise in value through the 1919 sale and beyond. This practice contrasts with
Vollard’s techniques to create immediate material value in the construction of the limited edition
but is nevertheless part of the same overall marketing strategy. While printers such as Clot rarely
received artistic acclaim or even recognition for their contribution, through their collecting
practices, they could further profit financially from their involvement, many years after any
initial compensation for producing the prints.

The Printer as Dealer
Clot was not the only printer to participate in and benefit from the association of art prints
with a singular maker. Henry Stern and Édouard Duchatel—Clot’s colleagues who appeared in
Mellerio’s entry on printers in La Lithographie originale en couleurs (1898)—also sold prints to
publishers, as did the printer who owned the Imprimerie Ancourt, Edward Ancourt.
360
These

359
“À M. Clot Souvenir d’une operation laborieuse.” The version of the print with the dedication to
Auguste Clot is housed in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
360
Mellerio mentions Ancourt only in reference to the Imprimerie Ancourt, where Stern printed with
Lautrec. Ancourt’s workshop had been popular with avant-garde artists prior to their collaboration with
Clot; it produced the prints for Marty’s L’Estampe originale, as well as posters by Bonnard, Denis,
Vuillard, and Lautrec. Mellerio may have excluded Ancourt from his study because of the commercial
association of the firm. Another lithographer of the period, Eugène Verneau—who collaborated with
artist Henri Rivière but who also ran his own commercial printing firm—also did not appear in the list.
208
printers played an essential role in the sale of art prints. Print publishers and dealers worked
closely with printers in various aspects of their business, from printing proofs to locating and
selling extant prints. The account books for the Galerie Vollard show that payments to Clot and
Ancourt cover the expenses for each printer’s work.
361
Additionally, payments in Vollard’s
account books indicate that the dealer-publisher purchased prints from printers, such as when he
paid 150 francs to Ancourt in 1895 for three prints by Art Nouveau artist Georges Auriol.
362

Another payment of 90 francs on February 5, 1896 to Ancourt from Vollard covers the purchase
of prints by Auriol and Denis.
363
Ancourt also sold Vollard several works by Lautrec, including
Musiciens (croquis) for 20 francs, Femme assise for 30 francs, Aristide Bruant (croquis) for 25
francs, and Femme couchée (sanguine) for 25 francs.
364
Ancourt sold Vollard final prints as well
as artists’ studies left behind in his print shop. Both Ancourt and Vollard would have recognized
the value of such materials on the market for the work of an increasingly popular artist such as
Lautrec.
Ancourt also sold annotated posters and prints, particularly those by Lautrec, to other
dealers. Vollard was only one of several leading print dealers—among them Sagot, Pellet, and
Kleinmann—some of whom also developed productive working relationships with printers.
Sagot started his business in the 1880s, quickly becoming an influential figure in the

Mellerio lists only three printers by name, specifically calling out the skill of Stern and Duchatel although
they worked at Ancourt and Lemercier, respectively.
361
In the early years of his gallery, Vollard seems to have employed Ancourt as well as Clot in print
projects. Clot became Vollard’s primary printer around 1896.
362
Vollard Archives MS 241 (4,3), fol. 37, Musée d’Orsay.
363
Vollard Archives MS 241 (4,3), fol. 41, Musée d’Orsay. For comparison, Vollard’s first album,
published in 1896, sold at 150 francs for a complete set of twenty-two prints, valuing each of those
individually at less than seven francs.
364
Vollard Archives MS 241 (4,5), fol. 41, Musée d’Orsay. Paintings by Lautrec sold for considerably
more around this time. For instance, a painting labeled “peinture femme toilette” in Vollard’s account
book cost 500 francs when it entered the dealer-publisher’s holdings on January 25, 1897. Vollard
Archives MS 241 (4,3), fol. 63, Musée d’Orsay.
209
contemporary print market.
365
He promoted the work of individual artists, published their prints,
posters, and books, and kept his shop well stocked with a wide array of printed material. As
Phillip Dennis Cate has argued, Sagot’s business practices may have helped fuel collectors’
interest in rare prints; Sagot published catalogues that attest to his interest in buying and selling
unusual versions of prints.
366

As he did with Vollard, Ancourt sold prints and posters by Lautrec to Sagot in the mid-
1890s. Posters were typically inexpensive, but Ancourt raised the price for posters with the
artist’s signature and annotations. For instance, he sent an invoice to Sagot on June 14, 1895 for
125 francs for twenty-five annotated and signed posters by Lautrec featuring the Irish singer May
Belfort.
367
[Figure 4.15] His invoice notes that these posters are more valuable because they
manifest Lautrec’s involvement; the posters all bear his monogram stamp, but the signature
would have been a supplemental, and thus valuable, sign of his authorial hand. The price of the
posters was also much higher than others Ancourt sold. An invoice from July 9, 1895 shows that
he sold Sagot an additional forty posters by Lautrec of the singer May Milton for only 60
francs.
368
[Figure 4.16] Another invoice from the same day lists a sale by Ancourt to Sagot of
twenty-five posters featuring May Milton for 125 francs.
369
The higher price again reflects a
variation in the posters; the more expensive version of the poster had been printed on higher
quality paper (papier fort) and each included remarks (remarques). Although the price was low
for posters more generally, the difference between unsigned and unannotated posters and signed

365
The Fonds Sagot-Le Garrec (Archives 86) is part of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art (INHA),
Paris. For more on the start of Sagot’s practice in relation to other dealers, see Cate et al., Prints Abound,
21.
366
Ibid., 19-20.
367
Edward Ancourt to Edmond Sagot, 14 June 1895, Box 64, Fonds Sagot-Le Garrec, INHA.
368
Ancourt to Sagot, 9 July 1895, Letter 3, Box 64, Fonds Sagot-Le Garrec, INHA.
369
Ancourt to Sagot, 9 July 1895, Letter 4, Box 64, Fonds Sagot-Le Garrec, INHA.
210
and annotated posters is considerable: the former were offered at 1.5 francs per poster, whereas
the latter were sold consistently for 5 francs each. Evidently these additional signs of the artist
distinguished them from their unsigned counterparts, the variation raising their value. Ancourt
thus helped expand the market for variety in color lithographic prints as well as contributed to
building the narrative that associated these posters with the work of a singular artist, in this case,
Lautrec.
Printers also developed close ties to dealers, sometimes serving as intermediaries for
particular artists in the sale of their work. For example, Henry Stern, a master printer who took
over for Père Cotelle at the Imprimerie Ancourt, became Lautrec’s primary printer in the late
1890s. Stern evidently had a real financial stake in the artist’s graphic arts.
370
In a letter to Sagot
on March 11, 1898, Stern writes,
Mr. Lautrec having asked me to convene a few print dealers for Sunday March 13, I am
making a point of advising you, I have made an appointment with Mr. Pierreport and
Arnould for 10 am. Do you want to come at 8 am if you would like to buy a few prints,
you can choose at your convenience from the stack…
371

The letter, on paper featuring Stern’s ornate letterhead for “Impressions Artistiques,” indicates
that Stern and Lautrec were close colleagues, the former not only printing with the artist but also
helping him to set up sales of his prints.
372
[Figure 4.17] The note to Sagot also reveals that the
printer and publisher held a mutual understanding with regard to the sale of Lautrec’s print; Stern
gave Sagot priority over other print dealers also interested in acquiring the artist’s work. Other
letters and receipts indicate that Stern sold other prints to Sagot besides those of Lautrec, his

370
A letter from Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, written on Stern’s letterhead, to a M. A. Arnould, likely a
dealer or collector, states: “…Please draw up a statement of prints in which we have a one half interest
with M. Stern…” Lautrec to M. A. Arnould, 19 July 1898, in The Letters of Toulouse-Lautrec, ed.
Herbert D. Schimmel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 339.
371
Henry Stern to Edmond Sagot, 11 March 1898, Box 67, Fonds Sagot-Le Garrec, INHA.
372
Stern was known as a close friend and drinking buddy of Lautrec’s. See Julia Frey, Toulouse-Lautrec:
A Life (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994), 449-450.
211
most famous client. In an October 27, 1903 letter to Sagot the printer writes,
In my last letter I told you that I had some prints. Here are the names of the artists: Jean
Veber – Roedel – Willette – Fantin-Latour – Gosslob-Richemont – Dillon – Léandre –
Steinlen. If you are interested in these prints, I would ask you to kindly let me know
before I offer them elsewhere.
373

Evidently, Stern turned to Sagot before other dealers when ready to sell prints in his possession.
In another letter less than a month later on November 9, 1903, the printer wrote to the dealer,
asking him to come by because the printer “decided to sell everything [he has].”
374
Stern’s letters
are complemented in Sagot’s records by numerous long lists of prints the printer sold to him
before and after these letters. In addition to many prints by Lautrec—including annotated and
signed trial proofs—Stern’s holdings included prints and posters by Ibels, Bonnard, Vuillard, de
Feure, Denis, and other artists working in the graphic arts at this time. The printer, here serving
as a dealer and working directly with a major Parisian dealer, played an active role in the print
market, cultivating relationships with both artists and dealers.
Printers also helped dealers locate specific prints. In a 1900 letter to Sagot, printer
Édouard Duchatel explains, “I happened to find you 2 posters of Léandre from Mlle. Deschamps.
I’m offering them to you…”
375
Duchatel’s letters to Sagot indicate that the printer actively
looked for specific prints sought by the dealer. Another letter from 1902 updates Sagot on his
search for various prints, informing the dealer that Duchatel was in the midst of procuring two
posters by Gavarni for him.
376
Although the artist died in 1866, Sagot may have wished to
expand his holdings or find posters requested by a specific client. Duchatel also lets the dealer
know that he located a possible source for Fantin-Latour prints, including an address of one of

373
Stern to Sagot, 27 Oct. 1903, Box 67, Fonds Sagot-Le Garrec, INHA.
374
Stern to Sagot, 9 Nov. 1903, Box 67, Fonds Sagot-Le Garrec, INHA.
375
Édouard Duchatel to Sagot, 22 Oct. 1900, Box 64, Fonds Sagot-Le Garrec, INHA.
376
Duchatel to Sagot, 18 April 1902, Box 64, Fonds Sagot-Le Garrec, INHA.
212
the printer’s employees. Evidently, the printer had access to a larger network of people who may
have come into possession of desirable prints through their involvement in various projects.
Sagot could thus dip into this network through his relationship with Duchatel as well as Stern
and Ancourt. Scholars have considered the role of such dealer-publishers within the print market
yet overlooked the activity of printers who served as quasi dealers. As their letters reveal, these
printers, like Clot, were a consistent and rich source of printed material for print dealers such as
Sagot and Vollard.
Printers were thus central players not only in the production of artist prints, but also in
their circulation and success in the art market. As active participants in the sale of prints, either
those from their own collections or those they sourced, printers assisted in the promotion of the
singular artist as sole maker of the original art lithograph and thus facilitated their own erasure.
They benefited financially from the association of these prints with artists, even expanding the
market by offering prints with annotations that served as additional visual signifiers of the artist’s
hand and singular authorship. Although crucial to the production of the prints they sold, printers
welcomed and contributed to their own erasure from the prints’ narrative by offering collectors
proximity to the artist’s process.
As this chapter has shown, in late nineteenth-century France, a developing network of
dealer-publishers, printers, and artists formalized a system to foster the commercialization of the
singular art object despite its status as a multiple through limited edition prints. Limited edition
prints, in turn, proved critical to the emergence of the art market, promoting and
circulating artists’ names and aesthetics and cultivating their reputations across media. The
market success of this network in creating and promoting color lithographs as singular works of
art is evident in the survival of receipts, letters, and lists of sales. Together, they successfully
213
promoted these artists, guaranteeing their lasting fame and legacy; in turn, the value of the
artists’ prints grew, ensuring that the names of the publishers and printers were also not lost, at
least not in the archives.
These scattered records of the modern art market reveal that, while the involvement of
printers such as Clot in the production of limited edition color lithographs went unacknowledged
on the print’s surface, they played an active role in weaving the narrative of original, singular
authorship and benefited financially from the increasing value of these artists’ work. The
collecting and dealing practices of printers complemented those of print dealers, especially those
like Vollard who sold paintings by the same artists. Vollard, ever the savvy businessman,
understood that the prints would help promote the artists who made them, and, in turn, would
become even more valuable as these artists’ reputations grew. The connection of the graphic arts
to Vollard’s larger business practices ensured that he carried on his publication efforts, even
when they were not initially financially viable. Indeed, in the form of more affordable, multiple
originals, the artists’ color lithographs eventually ended up in a wider range of museums and
private collections than did their paintings, given the often prohibitive prices of oils on
canvas. The modern art market, in other words, relied on and developed by virtue of the graphic
arts.

214

EPILOGUE

On September 17, 2019, Vollard’s 1896 album sold for over half a million dollars at
Sotheby’s Prints and Multiples sale; that same day, the auction house also sold a 2011 etching by
the American artist Richard Serra. Serra printed the large jet black etching, Ballast I, at Gemini
G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited), the renowned print shop in Los Angeles where he
collaborated with Xavier Fumat, the printer with whom Serra has worked exclusively for over
twenty years. [Figure E.1] Although many art collectors may be unable to afford a multi-million
dollar behemoth sculpture by Serra, some could perhaps afford one of the artist’s original
etchings for a few thousand dollars.
377
The experimental potential of printmaking continues to
attract artists, as it did in the 1890s; artists, along with their publishers and dealers, also
recognize the importance of working across media and making artwork available in multiple
formats.
Sotheby’s September 2019 Prints and Multiples sale is one example of the vibrant
contemporary market for limited edition artist prints. While some of the prints included are Old
Masters’, a large portion were created by celebrated modern and contemporary artists active
from the late nineteenth century until today. These prints sell at prices that often remain
accessible to individual, museum, and library collections. They are not as affordable as museum
posters sold in gift shops or other mass produced reproductions, nor do they reach the millions of
dollars that paintings and sculptures by the same artists fetch during modern and contemporary

377
Serra’s etching Ballast I sold on September 17, 2019 for 3000 GBP ($3,741).
215
art auction sales.
378
Artist prints disrupt the hierarchy of art; they are neither inexpensive mass
media, nor singular works of high art. These prints nevertheless permit collectors and museums
to own an original artwork by a famous or emerging artist at a much more accessible price; print
collections can grow, becoming more extensive and wide reaching than collections of singular
artworks. In short, through the form of the limited edition, original artist print, the graphic arts
continue to make up an important subset of the modern art market.
As this dissertation has shown, the network of production behind such prints formed in
the late nineteenth century, epitomized by the dealer-publisher Ambroise Vollard, the printer
Auguste Clot, and the myriad artists Vollard commissioned to make limited edition original color
lithographs. Over the course of the twentieth century, other dealers followed in Vollard’s
footsteps. The German dealer and champion of Cubism, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler also
commissioned prints from artists with whom he worked in the early twentieth century.
Kahnweiler was an avid publisher of illustrated books, commissioning works by artists such as
Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris, among others. Another dealer, Henri Petiet,
purchased Vollard’s enormous stock of artist prints after Vollard’s untimely death in a car
accident in 1939 and continued the publication of several works in progress, including Picasso’s
Suite Vollard.
379
Other publishers in the twentieth century, such as the Greek publisher Tériade
(Stratis Eleftheriadis), sent artists to make prints at Mourlot Frères, a renowned lithography shop
in Paris that specialized in printing exhibition posters designed by artists. Like Clot’s atelier,
Mourlot welcomed artists into the shop to make original, limited edition prints. Commissioned
by Tériade, Mourlot worked with artists such as Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard to produce

378
For instance, a painting by Paul Signac, La Corne d’or (Constantinople) from 1907, sold on November
12, 2019 at the Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale in New York for $16,210,000.
379
Picasso completed the suite of etchings between 1930 and 1937. Printed by Roger Lacourière in 1939,
they finally entered the market in the early 1950s.
216
covers for the important art review Verve, which ran from 1937 to 1960. This network,
reminiscent of Vollard’s relationship with a group of artists and Clot, capitalized on the interest
in original artist prints that Vollard had helped to cultivate decades prior.
The role of dealer-publisher also transitioned and morphed, sometimes combining with
that of the printer. For example, following World War II, lithographer Aimé Maeght, encouraged
by Bonnard, whom the printer had met in the south of France during the war, opened the Galerie
Maeght in Paris in 1945. The gallery went on to promote some of the major modern artists of the
twentieth century, including Matisse, Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, and Alberto Giacometti.
Each artist worked closely with Maeght or his son Adrien, both professional lithographers, to
produce original artist prints that were sold in conjunction with exhibitions held at the gallery.
Beginning in the winter of 1946/47 through to the 1980s, an issue of the gallery’s periodical,
Derrière le miroir, accompanied every exhibition organized by the gallery.
380
Maeght developed
a close working relationship with the artists with whom he printed. The dealer invited artists to
work in diverse techniques and genres and encouraged experimentation in these printmaking
projects. The periodical, printed by the Maeght family at the Imprimerie ARTE, proved crucial
to framing the artwork of leading artists; because of the high quality of the prints, they quickly
became collector’s items. Unlike art dealers who came before him, Maeght assumed the role of
both printer and dealer-publisher, understanding the intricate and essential relationship between
the modern art market and the graphic arts.
Similar print establishments and printer-publishers surfaced in the United States in the
post-World War II period. Print shops specializing in fine art prints emerged from New York to

380
Derrière le miroir was published in-house and included original lithographs and interpretive essays,
often by recognized poets and literary figures. See Nicholas Watkins and Ann Dumas, Behind the Mirror:
Aimé Maeght and His Artists: Bonnard, Matisse, Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque (London: Royal
Academy of Arts, 2008).
217
California. Tatyana Grosman started the print shop Universal Limited Art Editions in 1957 in
New York. Artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, and Cy Twombly came to
Grosman to make original prints, initially lithographs and later offset and relief printing. Across
the country in 1960, printmaker June Wayne opened Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Inc. in
Los Angeles. The workshop, which moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico a decade later, helped
to revive printmaking in the United States by training master printers in collaborative
printmaking and inviting artists such as Sam Francis, Richard Diebenkorn, and Josef Albers to
make original lithographs. In 1966 Kenneth Tyler, a collaborative printer trained at Tamarind,
founded Gemini G.E.L., the Los Angeles print shop that began as a lithography and silkscreen
workshop but expanded to incorporate many forms of experimental printing and editioning.
Gemini printers have collaborated with a wide range of celebrated modern and contemporary
artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenberg, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, Vija
Celmins, among many others.
These American examples are some of the most famous of the many print shops that
emerged in the second half of the twentieth century; they continue to print and publish artist
prints to this day. These presses revived and continued the tradition of printmaking as it
developed in late nineteenth-century France. Vollard, Clot, and the various artists who worked
with them established a network of collaborative printmaking and selling that became a model
for other print shops around the world. This structure continued to thrive in the twentieth
century, and print shops assumed the role of publishing as well, taking on the financial
responsibility and commissioning contemporary artists to create original artworks in their
workshops with their involvement. The Atelier Clot itself followed this trajectory. André Clot
succeeded his father Auguste in the 1930s, and Danish printmaker Peter Bramsen took over the
218
shop in the 1960s. Together with Auguste Clot’s grandson, Dr. Guy Georges, Bramsen began to
publish as well as print original lithographs. Today, the shop’s master printer Christian
Bramsen—Peter Bramsen’s son—performs the role of both publisher and printer, inviting artists
to work on original projects in the print shop nestled in the Marais.
381
Because of high
production costs, the amount of money contemporary print shops make remains low, yet they
continue to thrive owing to the market for such prints and the association of their work with the
1890s moment from which this tradition emerged. In other words, the legacy of the vibrant print
culture of the fin-de-siècle color revolution continues to instill value in the artist print, even in
the contemporary art market.
In the highly specialized context of artists’ prints and studies focused on the graphic
output of specific artists, printers are recognized as central figures. Museums have even
dedicated specific exhibitions to graphic arts emerging from esteemed print shops including
Maeght, Tamarind, and Gemini G.E.L.
382
Printers nevertheless remain largely overlooked in
broader studies of the history of modern art and the modern art market wherein prints are
examined primarily as part of an artist’s minor, secondary output. Printers are often left
uncredited with helping to develop the reputations of the artists that make up the canon. And yet,
printers helped build the art market and further artistic practice by making artworks by the same
artist available in different formats and at various price points. To this day, the modern and
contemporary art market comprises celebrated artists, many of whom make original prints. In the

381
The Atelier Clot has also expanded beyond Paris. Christian Bramsen and Morten Brunholt established
the Danish publishing house Atelier Clot, Bramsen & Brunholt in 2013; they also opened a lithographic
workshop and gallery in Svendborg, Denmark in 2021.
382
These exhibitions include Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque: Aimé Maeght and His Artists at the
Royal Academy of Art in London in 2008/2009; Pressing Ideas: Fifty Years of Women’s Lithographs
from Tamarind at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. in 2011; and The Serial
Impulse at Gemini G.E.L. at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2016/2017.
219
context of a contemporary art world expanding to include new media and materials, artists
continue to make prints using and experimenting with traditional printmaking processes, many of
which emerged in and have remained valuable since the early modern period.
This dissertation has shown how, in fin-de-siècle France, dealer-publishers, printers, and
artists worked together to create, promote, and reevaluate color lithography as an avant-garde art
form. Through their work, the manually produced limited edition artist print surfaced as central
to the circulation of avant-garde aesthetics and the emergence of the modern art market.
Fundamental to this process was not only the fabrication of rarity and proximity to singular
artistic genius, but also, and most crucially, the erasure of the printer’s essential role in the
production of these prints. By focusing on the printer, this dissertation reorients the history of art
around collaboration, manual labor, and commercial networks. In so doing, it demonstrates how
close attention to materials, process, and the archival residue of personal relationships reveals the
masked, but vital intimate networks of makers that craft and characterize artistic practice and
legacy.

220
Figure 0.1

Photograph of Lot 112 (Portfolio Les Peintres-graveurs, 1896), Sotheby’s Prints and Multiples
Sale (Sept. 17, 2019). https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2019/prints-and-
multiples/portfolio-les-peintres-graveurs-cf-johnson-pp-127.

221
Figure 1.1

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Cover for L'Estampe originale, 1893, color lithograph. Museum of
Modern Art, New York.

222
Figure 1.2

Charles Villemin after Victor Adam, Intérieur de l’imprimerie lithographique de Lemercier
[Interior of Lemercier's Lithographic Printing House], c. 1846, lithograph. Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York.

223
Figure 1.3

Photograph of the Imprimerie Paul Dupont, Paris, c. 1893. In Maurice Vachon, Les Arts et les
industries du papier en France, 1871-1894 (Paris: Libraries-Imprimeries Réunies, 1894), 194.
Bibliothèque Forney, Paris.

224
Figure 1.4

“Atelier d’essayage,” c. 1899, lithograph. In Alfred Lemercier, La Lithographie française de
1796 à 1896 et les arts qui s'y rattachent: manuel pratique s'adressant aux artistes et aux
imprimeurs (Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie, 1899), 71. Bibliothèque de l’Institut nationale d’histoire
de l’art, Paris.

225
Figure 1.5

“Comment on fait une chromolithographie–Décomposition d’une carte chromolithograpique
tirée en 10 couleurs,” in Le Figaro “Lithographe” [special edition], 1895, color lithograph.
Bibliothèque Forney, Paris.

226
Figure 1.6

“Inauguration du buste de M. Lemercier: Offert par ses ouvriers et employés le 6 juillet 1884 à
l’occasion de sa 81me anneé,” c. 1884, heliogravure. In Fernand Hue, Lemercier, imprimeur-
lithographe, officier de la Légion d'Honneur: biographie, avec un portrait d'apres
̀ le buste
exécuté par Aimé Millet et offert a ̀M. Lemercier par ses collaborateurs le 6 juillet 1884 (Paris:
Imprimerie Lemercier, 1894). Archives Atelier Clot, Paris.

227
Figure 1.7

Géo Blanc, L'Atelier d'Auguste Clot, 1930, photograph. Département des estampes et de la
photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

228
Figure 1.8

Alfred Lemercier, Letter of attestation for Auguste Clot, 27 August 1888. Archives Auguste
Clot, Apt.

229
Figure 1.9

“Le Graineur,” c. 1899, lithograph. In Alfred Lemercier, La Lithographie française de 1796 à
1896 et les arts qui s'y rattachent: manuel pratique s'adressant aux artistes et aux imprimeurs
(Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie, 1899), 10. Bibliothèque de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art,
Paris.

230
Figure 1.10

Auguste Clot to Auguste Rodin, 24 September 1898. Clot (Auguste), Archives Musée Rodin,
Paris.

231
Figure 1.11

Pierre Bonnard, Bonnard à Paris–Paysage du Dauphiné–L'Imprimeur Auguste Clot [Bonnard in
Paris–Landscapes of the Dauphiné–The Printer Auguste Clot], c.1910, graphite pencil, pen, ink,
and wash on paper. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

232
Figure 1.12

Loys Delteil, Clot in his atelier, date unknown, lithograph. Archives Auguste Clot, Apt.

233
Figure 2.1

Maurice Denis, Le Reflet dans la fontaine [The Reflection in the Fountain], 1897, color
lithograph. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

234
Figure 2.2

“Assortiment des couleurs simples et binaires des artistes avec le blanc, le noir, et le gris.” In
Michel-Eugène Chevreul, De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs (Paris: Pitois-Levrault,
1839), plate 5. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

235
Figure 2.3

“Couleurs de Ch. Lorilleux & Cie.” Supplément du Bulletin de l’Imprimerie, 1893, color
lithograph. Bibliothèque Forney, Paris.

236
Figure 2.4

“Ch. Lorilleux & Cie: Guide du coloriste.” Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie, date unknown.
Bibliothèque Forney, Paris.

237
Figure 2.5

“Couleurs Lithographiques.” Paris: E. Laflèche & Fils., date unknown. Bibliothèque Forney,
Paris.

238
Figure 2.6ab

Examples from Ch. Lorilleux & Cie color sample book, 1886, color lithographs. Bibliothèque
Forney, Paris.

239
Figure 2.7ab

Alphonse Mucha, calendars for February and May, color lithographs. Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie,
1893. Bibliothèque du Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.
240
Figure 2.8

Frontispiece of Alfred Lemercier, La Lithographie française de 1796 à 1896 et les arts qui s’y
rattachent. Manuel pratique s’adressant aux artistes et aux imprimeurs (Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et
Cie, 1899). Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.
241
Figure 2.9

Frontispiece of Traité de lithographie: Histoire, théorie, pratique. Paris: Ch. Lorilleux et Cie,
1889. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

242
Figure 2.10

Jules Chéret, Olympia Anciennes, Mont Agnes Russes, Boulevard des Capucines, 1892, color
lithograph. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

243
Figure 2.11

Utagawa Hiroshige, Evening Snow at Kanbara from Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road, c.
1833-1834, color woodblock print. Los Angeles Museum of Art.

244
Figure 2.12

Maurice Denis, La Famille Mellerio, 1897, oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

245
Figure 2.13

Pierre Bonnard, Birth announcement for Marie-Louise Mellerio, 1898, color lithograph.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

246
Figure 2.14

Pierre Bonnard, Cover for L'Estampe et l'affiche, 1897, color lithograph. Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York.

247
Figure 2.15

Pierre Bonnard, Cover for La Lithographie originale en couleurs, 1898, color lithograph.
Bibliothèque Forney, Paris.

248
Figure 2.16

Paul Signac, Trial proof of Les Bateaux [Boats], 1897-98, color lithograph, annotated in graphite.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

249
Figure 2.17

Paul Signac, Trial proof of Les Andelys [The Andeyls], 1897, color lithograph, annotated in
graphite. Private Collection.

250
Figure 2.18

Maurice Denis, Trial proof of La Vie devient précieuse, discrete [Life Becomes Precious,
Simple], 1899, color lithograph, annotated in graphite. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

251
Figure 2.19

Maurice Denis, La Vie devient précieuse, discrete [Life Becomes Precious, Simple], 1899, color
lithograph. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

252
Figure 2.20

Théo Van Rysselberghe, La Jetée [The Jetty], 1901, color lithograph. Van Gogh Museum,
Amsterdam.

253
Figure 3.1

Auguste Clot after Auguste Rodin, c. 1902, color lithograph. In Octave Mirbeau, Le Jardin des
supplices [The Torture Garden] (Paris: Ambroise Vollard, 1902). Cantor Arts Center, Stanford
University.

254
Figure 3.2

Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael, Judgement of Paris, c. 1510-20, engraving. Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York.

255
Figure 3.3

Jakob Christoffel Le Bon after Nicholas Blakey, Louis XV, 1739, color mezzotint with etching.
Art Institute of Chicago.

256
Figure 3.4

Godefroy Engelmann, Portrait After Greuze, 1837, color lithograph. Bibliothèque nationale de
France, Paris.

257
Figure 3.5

Édouard Manet, Polichinelle, 1874, color lithograph. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

258
Figure 3.6

Édouard Manet, Polichinelle, 1874, lithograph. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

259
Figure 3.7

Édouard Manet, Polichinelle, 1874, lithograph with gouache and watercolor. National Gallery of
Art, Washington, D.C.

260
Figure 3.8

Auguste Clot, Detail of “Montres XVIe-XVIIe Siècle,” 1890-1892, color lithograph. In La
Collection Spitzer: Antiquité–Moyen Age–Renaissance, vol. 5 (Paris: Maison Quantin and
Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1890-1892), Horloges et Montres, Pl. VII. Bibliothèque
historique de la Ville de Paris.

261
Figure 3.9

Auguste Clot, “La Procession du St. Sacrement Broderie Flandre XVIe Siècle,” 1890-1892, color
lithograph. In La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité–Moyen Age–Renaissance, vol. 5 (Paris: Maison
Quantin and Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1890-1892), Étoffes, Pl. IV. Bibliothèque
historique de la Ville de Paris.

262
Figure 3.10

Auguste Clot, Detail of “Bijoux XVIe-XVIIe Siècle,” 1890-1892, color lithograph. In La
Collection Spitzer: Antiquité–Moyen Age–Renaissance, vol. 3 (Paris: Maison Quantin and
Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1890-1892), Bijoux, Pl. V. Bibliothèque historique de la Ville
de Paris.

263
Figure 3.11

Auguste Rodin, La Fortune priée [The Fortune Requested], c. 1896-1900, lead pencil and
watercolor on paper. Musée Rodin, Paris.

264
Figure 3.12

Auguste Rodin, Femme agenouillée [Kneeling Woman], c. 1900, lead pencil and watercolor on
paper glued to board. Musée Rodin, Paris.

265
Figure 3.13

Auguste Clot after Auguste Rodin, c. 1902, color lithograph. In Octave Mirbeau, Le Jardin des
supplices [The Torture Garden] (Paris: Ambroise Vollard, 1902). Cantor Arts Center, Stanford
University.

266
Figure 3.14

Auguste Rodin, Femme assise se peignant, tête basse [Seated Woman Combing Her Hair, Head
Bowed], 1898-1902, lead pencil and watercolor on paper. Musée Rodin, Paris.

267
Figure 3.15

Auguste Clot after Auguste Rodin, c. 1902, color lithograph. In Octave Mirbeau, Le Jardin des
supplices [The Torture Garden] (Paris: Ambroise Vollard, 1902). Cantor Arts Center, Stanford
University.

268
Figure 3.16

René Giton, Auguste Rodin, Rose Beuret, and Auguste Clot in the garden of the villa des
Brillants at Meudon, 1899, cellulose nitrate negative. Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de
Paris.

269
Figure 3.17

Odilon Redon, Béatrice, 1897, color lithograph. Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine
Arts Museums of San Francisco.

270
Figure 3.18

Odilon Redon, Béatrice, 1885, pastel on paper. Private Collection.

271
Figure 3.19

Odilon Redon, Béatrice, 1897, color lithograph. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

272
Figure 3.20

Odilon Redon, Béatrice, 1897, color lithograph. Département des estampes et de la
photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

273
Figure 3.21

Paul Cézanne, Petits baigneurs [Small Bathers], 1896-97, color lithograph. Art Institute of
Chicago.

274
Figure 3.22

Paul Cézanne, Petits baigneurs [Small Bathers], 1896-97, lithograph with additions in graphite
and watercolor. Private Collection.

275
Figure 3.23

Paul Cézanne, Baigneurs [Bathers], c. 1890, oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

276
Figure 3.24

Henri-Edmond Cross, Aux Champs-Elysées [On the Champs-Elysées], c. 1898, color lithograph.
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

277
Figure 3.25

Henri-Edmond Cross, Les Nourrices aux Champs-Elysées [Nannies on the Champs-Elysées],
1897, color pencil on paper. Private Collection.

278
Figure 3.26

Maurice Denis, Study for Nos âmes en des gestes lents [Our Souls, In Slow Movement], 1892-
1899, pastel and graphite on paper. Musée Maurice Denis, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

279
Figure 3.27

Maurice Denis, Nos âmes en des gestes lents [Our Souls, In Slow Movement], 1899, color
lithograph. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

280
Figure 3.28

Maurice Denis, La Dormeuse [Sleeping Woman], 1895, photograph c. 1899 for Julius Meier
Graefe of “Bing” frieze. Archives Maurice Denis, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

Figure 3.29

Maurice Denis, Allégorie [Allegory], 1898, color lithograph. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York.

281
Figure 3.30

Maurice Denis, Study for Allégorie [Allegory], 1892-1899, pastel and graphite on paper. Musée
départemental Maurice Denis, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

282
Figure 3.31

Maurice Denis, Study for Allégorie [Allegory], 1892-1899, pastel and graphite on paper. Musée
départemental Maurice Denis, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

283
Figure 3.32

Maurice Denis, Study for Allégorie [Allegory], 1892-1899, pastel on paper. Musée départemental
Maurice Denis, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
284
Figure 3.33

Paul Signac, Les Andelys [The Andelys], 1895, color lithograph. Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.

285
Figure 3.34

Paul Signac, Les Andelys, Les Laveuses [The Andelys, the Washers], 1886, oil on canvas. Private
Collection.

286
Figure 3.35

Paul Signac, Le Port, Saint-Tropez [The Port, Saint-Tropez], c. 1897-1898, color lithograph.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

287
Figure 3.36

Paul Signac, Le Clocher de Saint-Tropez [The Bell Tower of Saint-Tropez], 1896, oil on canvas.
Fondation Bemberg, Toulouse.

288
Figure 3.37

Paul Signac, Bateaux à Flessingue [Boats at Flessingue], 1895, color lithograph. National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

289
Figure 3.38

Paul Signac, Le Port de Volendam [The Harbour of Volendam], 1896, oil on canvas. Private
Collection.

290
Figure 3.39

Paul Signac, La Bouée [The Buoy], 1894, color lithograph. National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C.

291
Figure 3.40

Paul Signac, La Bouée rouge, Saint-Tropez [The Red Buoy, Saint Tropez], 1895, oil on canvas.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
292
Figure 4.1

Pierre Bonnard, Exhibition poster for Les Peintres-graveurs, 1896, color lithograph. Museum of
Modern Art, New York.

293
Figure 4.2

Pierre Bonnard, Maison dans la cour [House in the Courtyard], 1899, color lithograph. Van
Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

294
Figure 4.3

Pierre Bonnard, Colophon for Paul Verlaine, Parallèlement [Alongside] (Paris: Vollard, 1900).
Département Réserve des livres rares, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

295
Figure 4.4

Maurice Denis, Nativité [Nativity], in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1907, color lithograph.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

296
Figure 4.5

Eugène Carrière, Nelly Carrière: Les yeux clos, 1895, lithograph. Collections Jacques Doucet,
Bibliothèque de l'Institut nationale d'histoire de l'art, Paris.

297
Figure 4.6

Matrise stone. Archives Atelier Clot, Paris.

298
Figure 4.7

Justification du tirage for Octave Mirbeau, Le Jardin des supplices [Torture Garden] (Paris:
Ambroise Vollard, 1902). Département Réserve des livres rares, Bibliothèque nationale de
France, Paris.

299
Figure 4.8

Justification du tirage for Paul Verlaine, Parallèlement [Alongside] (Paris: Ambroise Vollard,
1900). Département Réserve des livres rares, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

300
Figure 4.9

André Desvouges and Loys Delteil, Cover for Collection de M.A.C., Vente du Vendredi 13 juin
1919, Hôtel Drouot–Salle no. 7, Lithographies (Paris: Hôtel Drouot, 1919). Collections Jacques
Doucet, Bibliothèque de l'Institut nationale d'histoire de l'art, Paris.

301
Figure 4.10

André Desvouges and Loys Delteil, Collection de M.A.C., Vente du Vendredi 13 juin 1919, Hôtel
Drouot–Salle no. 7, Lithographies (Paris: Hôtel Drouot, 1919), 2-3. Collections Jacques Doucet,
Bibliothèque de l'Institut nationale d'histoire de l'art, Paris.

302
Figure 4.11

André Desvouges and Loys Delteil, Collection de M.A.C., Vente du Vendredi 13 juin 1919, Hôtel
Drouot–Salle no. 7, Lithographies (Paris: Hôtel Drouot, 1919), 22-23. Collections Jacques
Doucet, Bibliothèque de l'Institut nationale d'histoire de l'art, Paris.

303
Figure 4.12

Pierre Bonnard, Trial proof for Coin de rue vue d'en haut [Street Corner Seen from Above],
1899, color lithograph. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

304
Figure 4.13

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Le Pendu [Hanging Man], 1895, lithograph. Museum of Modern
Art, New York.
305
Figure 4.14

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to Arthur Huc, undated, Lot 350, Sale “Les Collections Aristophil
chez Artcurialon,” 2 April 2019, Hôtel Drouot.

306
Figure 4.15

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, May Belfort, 1895, color lithograph. Art Institute of Chicago.

307
Figure 4.16

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, May Milton, 1895, color lithograph. Cleveland Museum of Art.

308
Figure 4.17

Henry Stern to Edmond Sagot, 11 March 1898, Box 67, Fonds Sagot-Le Garrec (Archives 86),
l'Institut national d'histoire de l'art (INHA), Paris.

309
Figure E.1

Richard Serra, Ballast I, 2011, etching. Private Collection.

310
Bibliography

Archives

Archives Atelier Clot, Paris
Archives Auguste Clot, Apt
Archives Maurice Denis, Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Archives Musée Rodin, Paris
Archives Signac, Paris
Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris
Bibliothèque de l’École Estienne, Paris
Bibliothèque Forney, Paris
Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris
Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Paris
Bibliothèque du Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
Bibliothèque du Musée des arts et métiers, Paris
Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Paris
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Institut nationale d’histoire de l’art (INHA), Paris
Musée de Bretagne, Rennes
Musée départemental Maurice Denis, Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Musée de l’Imprimerie, Lyon
Musée d’Orsay, Centre de Documentation, Paris
Newberry Library, Chicago

Periodicals

Les Affiches de l’imprimerie
L’Artiste
Bulletin de l’imprimerie
Bulletin de la papeterie
Bulletin de la vie artistique
L’Estampe et l’affiche
L’Estampe originale
L’Estampe moderne
Le Figaro
Gazette des artistes graveurs français
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
Journal des imprimeurs
Les Peintres-lithographes
La Plume
Le Populaire
La Revue blanche
Revue des arts graphiques

311
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Creator Lauricella, Natalia P. (author)

Core Title Collaboration in color: master printers, dealer-publishers, and avant-garde lithography in late nineteenth-century France

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Art History

Degree Conferral Date 2021-08

Publication Date 07/21/2025

Defense Date 04/23/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Ambroise Vollard,art and industry,art market,Auguste Clot,chromolithography,collaboration,colors,dealer-publisher,France,impressionism,ink,labor,limited edition,lithography,modern art,Nabis,Neo-Impressionism,nineteenth century,OAI-PMH Harvest,print,print history,printer,reproduction,symbolism,translation

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Language English

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Advisor Schwartz, Vanessa (committee chair), Accampo, Elinor (committee member), Ogata, Amy (committee member), Pon, Lisa (committee member)

Creator Email natalialauricella@gmail.com,nlaurice@usc.edu

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