F. Guillot-Pelletier Calendar

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F. Guillot-Pelletier Calendar by Alphonse Mucha

A year is built into this advertisement. The local image names F. Guillot-Pelletier of Orléans and carries an 1898 calendar, while the Mucha Foundation dates its catalogued colour lithograph to 1897.^[1] Those statements concern different things: the design or printing history in the catalogue and the year displayed for the calendar's use. This page keeps both visible instead of forcing the image into a single date.

At a Glance

• Date1897 design; 1898 calendar
• Mediumcolour lithograph^[1]
• ClientF. Guillot-Pelletier, Orléans
• Local imagecalendar reproduction; physical sheet unverified

Contents

1. A calendar that advertises its maker
2. The two dates
3. The Orléans metalworking firm
4. Looking again

A calendar that advertises its maker

The central name is framed by ornament and by two architectural views. The calendar grid below makes the advertisement useful throughout the year it announces. A viewer could consult the months while repeatedly encountering the company name. That relationship between decoration and everyday use is the point of the format: the sheet does more than hang as a picture.

The local reproduction is small, but its major parts remain clear. Lettering occupies the centre; small scenes balance the sides; the calendar occupies the lower edge. An exhibition catalogue transcribes the work's upper date as 1838, paired with 1898, correcting this page's earlier reading of “1833.”^[4] The business's own history also says that Guillot-Pelletier has operated since 1838.^[5] Together those records make the two printed years intelligible as a sixty-year span, although they do not state the exact terms of Mucha's commission.

The design asks the eye to move between text, views and calendar. Each has a different pace. The large name reads quickly, the side images reward a closer look, and the months invite repeated use. Mucha organised those demands within one decorative field, giving a commercial object the cohesion of a designed composition.

The two dates

The Mucha Foundation catalogue identifies the work as a 1897 colour lithograph.^[1] The local image visibly presents the 1898 calendar. A calendar for an upcoming year may be prepared before that year begins, so these dates need not conflict. The record does not, however, identify the exact physical impression behind this website JPEG. Its recorded measurements belong to the Foundation's sheet and are not dimensions of the digital crop.

This distinction matters when searching for the work. Someone entering “1898 Guillot-Pelletier” is likely thinking of the calendar's printed year; a catalogue search under 1897 points to the production date. Both routes of discovery lead to this design, provided they are labelled clearly. The page's title follows the visible calendar, while its facts also preserve the Foundation date.

Mucha's work for printers and other commercial clients often moved through several printed contexts. A dated calendar is especially vulnerable to a misleading single-year caption because its displayed year can look like an artist's signature date. Here the lower grid supplies the object's function, not a complete production chronology.

The Orléans metalworking firm

The name on the calendar belongs to a maker of metal structures, rather than a print publisher. A municipal heritage report based on an 1896 industrial plan places F. Guillot-Pelletier at 33–35 rue de la Gare, Orléans, and describes its trade as greenhouses and heating equipment.^[6] This changes the way the side views can be understood: the sheet advertised the capabilities of a construction firm, with architecture relevant to its work, while the lower calendar made the advertisement useful across 1898. The small local reproduction does not securely identify the particular buildings in those views.

The official catalogue of the 1900 Paris Exposition lists Guillot-Pelletier fils & Cie at the same Orléans street under horticultural equipment, exhibiting a greenhouse and greenhouse heating in class 43.^[8] That period record independently confirms the advertised trade and shows the business presenting both structure and heating as connected products. Its later company wording must not be projected back onto the calendar as proof of who signed Mucha's 1897 commission. Nor does the catalogue identify the calendar's side views as any particular exhibition building.

A regional French heritage inventory records a surviving greenhouse whose door bears a Guillot-Pelletier Orléans nameplate. It says the structure closely matches an improved lean-to greenhouse model in the firm's 1890s catalogues and identifies Charles Eugène Frédéric Brandt as the engineer-draughtsman behind those models.^[7] The inventory's building is evidence for the firm's real late-nineteenth-century output; it is not identified as one of Mucha's two tiny calendar vignettes. This distinction keeps an attractive connection from becoming a claim the records cannot prove.

The firm's reach went beyond Orléans. Fortaleza's municipal account identifies the iron structure of its original Mercado da Carne as prefabricated in Guillot-Pelletier's French workshops. The two-hall market opened on 18 April 1897, the year assigned to Mucha's calendar lithograph; one of its relocated sections survives as the Mercado dos Pinhões.^[9] This establishes a documented overseas customer and a built example of the company's ironwork close to the calendar's date. It does not show that Mucha designed the market, that its image appears on this sheet, or that the calendar circulated in Brazil.

The engineering museum in Porto catalogues a separate printed technical plate of iron details for winter gardens and greenhouses. Its record transcribes “Guillot Pelletier fils et Cª Constructeurs à Orleans”, names the publisher and Monrocq printer, and notes an old institutional stamp.^[10] This shows the firm also circulated technical architectural material. The museum leaves that plate undated, and its printer and subject should not be transferred to Mucha's decorative calendar. Together, the surviving greenhouse, market and technical plate make the commercial context more specific than the word “metalwork” alone.^[7][9][10]

A bilingual exhibition catalogue labels Mucha's print F. Guillot-Pelletier-Orléans 1838–1898, calls it a calendar for 1898, and dates the colour lithograph to 1897, matching the Foundation's date and its 37 × 53.5 cm measurement.^[4][1] The typography therefore carries three different dates or date roles: the firm's long history, the year of the usable calendar and the catalogue's production year. Keeping them separate makes this work easier to understand than calling all three simply “the date of the poster.”

Looking again

Begin with the company name, then inspect the views on either side before returning to the months. The sheet balances a fixed business identity with a calendar that would soon become out of date. That tension is part of its interest as both advertisement and designed object. The secure claims are modest but useful: the Foundation's 1897 colour-lithograph record, the local image's 1898 calendar and the visible Guillot-Pelletier wording.^[1]

Watch: Alphonse Mucha

See how Mucha’s commercial design grew from the same Paris visual language as his theatre posters.

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 · GismondaAlfons Mucha: GismondaCzech Centre London

Frequently Asked Questions

References

1. Mucha Foundation, “F. Guillot-Pelletier Calendar,” object 269, 1897 colour lithograph. View source.
2. Mucha Foundation, Browse Works, printer and calendar work in the artist's catalogue. Browse.
3. Mucha Foundation, timeline of Mucha's Paris commercial work. Timeline.
4. Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, bilingual Mucha: The Legacy of Art Nouveau catalogue, entry “F. Guillot-Pelletier-Orléans 1838–1898,” calendar for 1898. Exhibition catalogue.
5. Guillot-Pelletier, company history stating activity since 1838. Company history.
6. Ville d'Orléans, heritage-planning report on the 1896 industrial plan, listing the firm's rue de la Gare premises and trade. Municipal report.
7. Région Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, cultural-heritage inventory IA58001303, greenhouse attributed to Guillot-Pelletier. Inventory dossier.
8. Exposition internationale universelle de 1900, Catalogue général officiel, group VIII, class 43, no. 70, p. 13, Guillot-Pelletier fils & Cie. Official catalogue.
9. Prefeitura de Fortaleza, municipal history of the Mercado dos Pinhões, identifying Guillot-Pelletier's prefabricated iron structure and the 18 April 1897 opening. Municipal account.
10. Museu do Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, inventory MPL5602ED, Detalhes do Jardim de Inverno e Estufas, technical plate naming Guillot-Pelletier fils et Cª. Museum record.

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