Flirt (Lefèvre-Utile)

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Flirt (Lefèvre-Utile) by Alphonse Mucha

Flirt makes the name of a Lefèvre-Utile biscuit into a social encounter. A formally dressed couple meet amid ornamental ironwork and plants, while the biscuit company's name enters the same narrow design. The Mucha Foundation dates its lithograph 1899; the Bibliothèque nationale de France records a 1900 legal deposit for a Champenois print titled Flirt. Biscuits Lefèvre-Utile. Both dates have a place in the work's history, but they identify different kinds of catalogue evidence.^[1][4]

At a Glance

• Catalogue titleFlirt. Biscuits Lefèvre-Utile
• Date1899 design in the Foundation; BnF legal deposit 1900^[1][4]
• Mediumcolour lithograph^[1][4]
• Catalogued sheets64 × 30 cm at the Foundation; 65 × 30 cm in the BnF record^[1][4]
• PrinterF. Champenois, Paris^[4]

Contents

1. A product name becomes a scene
2. The commission passed through Champenois
3. 1899, 1900 and the recorded sheets
4. Where *Flirt* sits among the biscuit designs

A product name becomes a scene

The printed word Flirt asks the viewer to interpret the pair's meeting as a moment of courtship. The man and woman face one another in an elegant setting, but the purpose is commercial rather than theatrical. The wrought-iron gate carries the Lefèvre-Utile name, according to specialist descriptions of the print, and the initials “LU” recur in the woman's dress. A small piece of biscuit appears at lower left. The branding is therefore dispersed through the picture: it can be read as text, discovered as a motif and recognised as a fragment of the product itself.^[1][6]

This is a different advertising tactic from simply placing a large packet beside a model. The viewer first reads the encounter and the word Flirt, then recognises that it names a biscuit. The narrow format compresses the social scene and the identifying text into one field. The ironwork creates a plausible setting while giving the company name a place within it. These observations explain the design's structure; the available records do not measure its effect on sales or identify the people portrayed.^[1][6]

The commission passed through Champenois

The Musée départemental breton's exhibition research identifies Louis Lefèvre-Utile as one of Mucha's significant commercial clients. It says Mucha and the biscuit maker met from about 1896 or 1897, but that orders for compositions to be printed went through Ferdinand Champenois under Mucha's exclusive publishing arrangement. Lefèvre-Utile communicated its wishes to Champenois and received project sketches through him. This helps explain why the BnF names Champenois as printer of Flirt: he was part of the working route between advertiser and artist, not merely a name on a finished sheet.^[4][5]

The Breton museum distinguishes Mucha's elegant treatment of biscuit names including Champagne, Boudoir, Flirt and Table d'hôte from the regional Breton imagery the company sometimes commissioned from other artists. That interpretation suits Flirt: the advertised food is linked to a refined encounter, without turning the scene into a picture of Nantes or the biscuit factory. The same research counts four Mucha advertising posters, thirteen box wrappings and a sweet tin for the company between 1896 and 1903. Its count describes a wider relationship, not four states of this single poster.^[5]

1899, 1900 and the recorded sheets

The Foundation's 1899 date and 64 × 30 cm measurement belong to its lithograph record. A Breton museum exhibition caption likewise lists Flirt as an 1899 colour lithograph measuring 64 × 30 cm. The BnF's record gives 65 × 30 cm and a 1900 legal deposit. A deposit date is evidence of library registration by that year, but does not by itself fix the first day of design or printing. The slight size difference can reflect individual sheets or measurement conventions; these records alone do not establish a different format.^[1][4][5]

Specialist market records describe a later issue bearing the additional inscription “Grand Prix – Paris 1900.” A Christie's description of such an inscribed sheet dates it 1900 and records 64 × 29.8 cm. Swann describes a first edition without the added award wording and a reissue after Lefèvre-Utile's 1900 Paris Exposition prize. This is useful evidence of a reported variant, but the short Foundation and BnF catalogue entries do not identify which state their measured examples represent. The article does not assign the local page's print to one state without text evidence for its exact impression.^[6][7]

The award wording belongs to a wider company campaign, not solely to Flirt. A 2005 account from Paris's Musée de la Publicité says Lefèvre-Utile's pavilion at the 1900 Exposition Universelle received a Grand Prix.^[8] The French Ministry of Culture's record for a different object, a biscuit box held by the Musée de Bretagne, transcribes “grand prix Paris 1900” on its printed wrapping.^[9] These sources independently establish the prize and its use in the firm's advertising. They make the reported added inscription on Flirt intelligible, while neither proves when a particular Flirt sheet was printed or which wording appears on the BnF's two originals.

A 2015 travelling exhibition catalogue describes Flirt as intended for point of purchase display and records a Dhawan Collection colour lithograph on paper at 25.25 × 11.75 inches (about 64.1 × 29.8 cm).^[10] This account gives a more specific proposed setting for the small advertisement than the word “poster” alone: it could address a customer where the biscuits were offered. The catalogue's measurement belongs to its exhibited sheet; its near agreement with the Foundation's 64 × 30 cm does not establish that the two records describe the same impression. Nor does the catalogue identify the award wording on the Dhawan sheet.

Poster House's exhibition guide independently calls Flirt an indoor point-of-sale poster, comparing it with Mucha's earlier LU advertisement. It invites readers to find at least three LU marks worked into the design and gives the same broad sequence: first printed in 1899, then printed again after the 1900 Exposition prize.^[11] The guide is a museum interpretation of use and printing history, not a retailer's surviving order or a printer's run record. It strengthens the functional reading of the small format while still leaving the state of this website's source image undetermined.

Where Flirt sits among the biscuit designs

The Biscuits Lefèvre-Utile calendar uses a solitary woman with a tray and months for 1897. The BnF and National Gallery of Art date that calendar's production or publication 1896, while the Foundation labels its own record 1897. A separate Sarah Bernhardt advertisement uses the actress in La Princesse lointaine and belongs to a later commission. Flirt has its own couple, product name, 1899 Foundation date and 1900 BnF deposit. A repeated client does not make these interchangeable prints.^[2][3][4]

Read Flirt once as a small romantic scene and again as a biscuit advertisement. The shift between those readings is the design's commercial mechanism: its setting holds attention while the gate, repeated initials and biscuit piece tie the encounter to Lefèvre-Utile's name. The precise issue history remains a question for the printer's records or a catalogue raisonné that compares the award inscription across surviving sheets.^[5][6]

Watch: Alphonse Mucha

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Alphonse Mucha: Plongez dans l’Art nouveau !

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

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▶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, “Flirt (1899),” object record. View source.
2. Mucha Foundation, “Biscuits Lefevre Utile (1897),” separate calendar object. View source.
3. Mucha Foundation, “Sarah Bernhardt - La Princesse Lointaine - Lefevre Utile (1903),” separate advertisement. View source.
4. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Flirt. Biscuits Lefèvre-Utile, cb40461408h, legal deposit 1900. View source.
5. Musée départemental breton, Alphonse Mucha: La Beauté Art nouveau, exhibition press dossier, pages 6–7 and 14–15 (French and English). View source.
6. Swann Auction Galleries, Flirt, catalogue note on the original and award-inscribed issue. View source.
7. Christie's, Flirt/Biscuits Lefèvre-Utile, award-inscribed 1900 sheet. View source.
8. Musée de la Publicité / Les Arts Décoratifs, “La saga du Petit LU: Les débuts,” Vitrine du mois, November 2005, p. 1, on the 1900 Exposition Grand Prix. Museum text.
9. French Ministry of Culture, Joconde, Musée de Bretagne biscuit box, inventory 979.0062.589, transcribing the 1900 Grand Prix wording on its separate printed wrapping. Collection record.
10. Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Alphonse Mucha: Master of Art Nouveau (2015), catalogue no. 20, Dhawan Collection: Flirt as a point of purchase display, lithograph on paper, 25.25 × 11.75 inches. Exhibition catalogue.
11. Poster House, Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau / Women exhibition guide (2019), p. 18, Flirt as an indoor point-of-sale poster and 1899/1900 printing sequence. Museum guide.

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