F. Champenois, Paris

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F. Champenois, Paris by Alphonse Mucha

A woman pauses over an open book inside a circular field of flowers. Above her, the local image reads F. CHAMPENOIS / PARIS. The Mucha Foundation identifies the underlying Rêverie design as an 1898 colour lithograph initially planned for the Champenois firm's calendar and later circulated as a decorative panel.^[1] The words on this reproduction make it a useful page about the publisher-imprint state, although they do not identify one particular surviving sheet.

At a Glance

• Datec. 1897–98 across cited objects and accounts^[1][2][5][6]
• DesignRêverie^[1]
• Mediumcolour lithograph^[1][2]
• Visible textF. CHAMPENOIS / PARIS
• Local issueexact held impression unverified

Contents

1. A pause inside a circular garden
2. Rêverie and the publisher's wording
3. What the imprint meant
4. Looking again

A pause inside a circular garden

The figure bends over a book or album while a ring of stems and flowers surrounds her. The round field holds a quiet moment apart from the plain area that carries the publisher's name. Mucha gives the reader a small private act—turning pages—inside a public advertising image. The pose encourages a viewer to slow down just as the lettering announces the firm responsible for producing prints.

The Foundation describes the woman leafing through a book, possibly a collection of printer's samples, and notes the lace-like effect of the floral circle.^[1] “Possibly” matters: the exact content of the book is not established. The image supports close looking at its pages and the woman's attention; it does not let us read the book or name it securely.

Poster specialist Jack Rennert offers a more definite reading in a 2019 interview: he calls the object in her lap a sample book of Champenois printing and argues that it is the scene's subtle link to the firm's trade.^[9] His interpretation explains why a printer might choose this apparently private subject for self-promotion, but it remains an expert reading rather than a legible inventory of the pages. The Foundation's more cautious “possibly” is the right limit for identifying the depicted book.^[1]

The floral ring also mediates between ornament and space. It is neither a realistic window nor a mere border. Leaves and flowers enclose the seated figure, then let the surrounding ground open around her. The result connects a contemplative subject to the clear presentation needed for a firm's printed name.

Rêverie and the publisher's wording

According to the Foundation, Rêverie was designed for Champenois's 1898 company calendar and soon appeared through La Plume as a decorative panel.^[1] The Bibliothèque nationale de France separately catalogues a 1898 poster with Champenois lettering and a textless variant.^[2][3] These records establish that the base design circulated in different forms. They do not prove that the small website image is the precise BnF impression: the wording visible here is abbreviated to F. Champenois and Paris, while the BnF with-letter record gives a fuller address.

This page therefore describes the publisher-imprint version shown locally. The separate Rêverie route concerns the design without the same visible publisher line. Keeping the descriptions distinct helps readers see how a design could change purpose or audience as lettering was added or removed. It also avoids merging dimensions from different held sheets: each institution measures its own physical object, while this file is a reduced web reproduction.

The Champenois relationship was central to Mucha's printed work. The printer's name here is more than a caption applied after the fact; it is part of the image a contemporary viewer saw. Reading it alongside the woman and flowers makes the commercial setting of a seemingly dreamy design visible.

What the imprint meant

The BnF's French catalogue gives the fuller text of its with-letter poster as F. Champenois imprimeur-éditeur 66 Boul[evard] St Michel. 1898. It labels that sheet avec lettre and records a 67 × 49 cm colour lithograph. The address identifies a Paris printer-publisher and turns the picture into an advertisement for the firm itself. That is more specific than the abbreviated publisher name in the local reproduction. Without a documented link between this web file and a held sheet, the BnF's address, dimensions and printed date belong to its catalogued impression, not automatically to this one.^[2]

Another physical example survives in Italy. The Italian national cultural-heritage catalogue records a colour lithograph on card in the Museo nazionale Collezione Salce at Treviso, inventory 24201. It dates that poster to about 1897 and measures it at 46.5 × 35 cm. Its central heading spells out the publisher's name, trade and 66 Boulevard Saint-Michel address. The museum identifies it with the Rêverie design, but its date, support and dimensions belong to that Salce object alone. They should not be transferred to the larger BnF sheet or the reduced image on this page.^[5]

The BnF links its lettered example to a second state that has neither lettering nor a printed date. That second sheet is catalogued as a hand-coloured lithograph measuring 71.5 × 54 cm, with 1898 supplied as a catalogue date. The two notices therefore establish a real difference in wording and physical records, while leaving the sequence of production unresolved. The with-letter notice cites a specialist catalogue that lists seven variants; the two BnF descriptions are not a complete map of every printing.^[2][3]

The firm's role extended beyond putting its name on a poster. The Mucha Foundation dates Mucha's Champenois contract to 1896 and says the printer soon carried his designs across calendars, decorative panels, postcards, theatre programmes and menus, licensing work abroad as well. In the same period Mucha contributed to La Plume, whose Salon des Cent promoted the poster as an art form. The move of this calendar-born design into a La Plume decorative panel fits those documented channels of circulation. The sources do not tell us how many copies of either form were printed or exactly when each went on sale.^[1][4]

Poster House's exhibition guide calls the Champenois version a New Year promotional item for the printing firm and says the design was later sold without wording under the title Rêverie.^[6] Its label gives 1897 for the Champenois version, while the Foundation calls its own Rêverie lithograph 1898.^[1][6] These dates may refer to preparation for a 1898 calendar and a later marketed panel, but the texts do not document an exact sequence. France's Philaposte likewise dates the advertising image 1897 in material for its much later 2023 stamp, which reuses the design; the stamp is a new reproduction, not a late nineteenth-century impression.^[7]

A Japanese National Museum of Modern Art exhibition checklist records a separately held Rêverie colour lithograph on paper from Sakai City Cultural Hall, dated 1898 and measured 71.5 × 53.8 cm.^[8] It supports the international collection history and another object-specific measurement. The checklist does not establish that this paper sheet, the BnF's hand-coloured example and the Salce card are the same printing state. Their labels and sizes should remain attached to their respective holdings.

A touring exhibition catalogue gives a more specific label to another surviving example: Rêverie, Variant 4. It records a 1898 colour lithograph on paper mounted to linen, measuring 28.4 × 21.75 inches, and says La Plume marketed this version as a decorative poster without a printed title.^[10] The catalogue calls the Champenois New Year item the first form, but does not supply a contemporary printer's ledger for the full sequence. Its “Variant 4” designation is valuable for identifying that exhibited example; it should not be assigned to the abbreviated F. Champenois reproduction at the top of this page.

The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art also catalogues a Reverie lithograph, accession 2001-038, dated circa 1898 and measured 18 × 24 inches.^[11] Its brief public record does not specify whether that sheet retains an imprint, calendar wording or neither. It is another physical holding of the design family, but cannot be placed securely among the seven cited variants from the published catalogue data alone.^[2][11] The comparison makes the central question sharper: shared composition and approximate date establish a relationship, while the actual lettering and print support determine which particular form a museum owns.

Looking again

Follow the woman's gaze toward the book, then trace the floral circle upward to the lettering. The design can be encountered as a quiet decorative picture, but the local printed words locate it within a publisher's trade. Its exact edition still requires a closer physical comparison. The secure connection is the shared Rêverie composition and the publisher wording visible in this file.^[1][2]

Watch: Alphonse Mucha

Follow Mucha’s work from Art Nouveau Paris to his later Czech projects.

Alphonse Mucha: Plongez dans l’Art nouveau !

Grand Palais

A French museum introduction to Mucha’s Art Nouveau years, poster work and decorative language.

Watch on YouTube

▶01 · Art Nouveau overviewAlphonse Mucha: Plongez dans l’Art nouveau !Grand Palais▶02 · Paris and designAlphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau in ParijsKunstmuseum Den Haag▶03 · Prague and the Slav EpicPrague’s Art Nouveau, Mucha, and the Slav EpicRick Steves Classroom Europe

Frequently Asked Questions

References

1. Mucha Foundation, “Rêverie,” object 78, design and circulation account. View source.
2. Bibliothèque nationale de France, FRBNF40461635, 1898 Champenois with-letter poster. Catalogue.
3. Bibliothèque nationale de France, FRBNF40562956, textless variant. Catalogue.
4. Mucha Foundation, English and Czech career timelines, 1896–97 entries on Champenois and La Plume. These language versions are one institutional account. Timeline.
5. Italian national cultural-heritage catalogue, Museo nazionale Collezione Salce, inventory 24201, record 0500654504. Catalogue.
6. Poster House, Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau / Nouvelle Femme, exhibition guide, p. 21. Read guide.
7. Philaposte, July 2023 announcement of the Mucha Rêverie stamp, pp. 1–2. Read announcement.
8. National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Art Nouveau exhibition work list, entry 3073 for the Sakai City Cultural Hall Rêverie. Read work list.
9. Jack Rennert, interview with Jessica Adams, “Jack Rennert Explains It All,” Poster Auctions International, 19 February 2019, on the sample-book interpretation of F. Champenois / Rêverie. Read interview.
10. Alphonse Mucha: Master of Art Nouveau, touring exhibition catalogue, entry 14, Rêverie, Variant 4, 1898; medium, size and decorative issue account. Catalogue PDF.
11. Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, Reverie, accession 2001-038, c. 1898 lithograph. Museum record.

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