1940s Spring/Summer French Fashion Pochoir Print
13 1/4” x 8 1/2". Pochoir. Handcoloured lithograph on paper.
Brown A line Dress from Les Croquis du Grand Chic, Été 1940. style 59/8
Tipped on to rice paper.
3 pin holes to left margin, light cockling, small spots to right margin.
Some of our fashion prints are pochoirs. Pochoir is the French word for stencil. This term is usually applied to a class of print that is hand-coloured through a series of carefully made forms (mostly cut from zinc or copper sheets). A printed outline of the design is originally produced and then carefully hand-brushed. Each separate colour requires a different stencil (some pochoirs have had up to 250). The paints used are mainly watercolour based or gouache but some works in oil have also been made. An ancient technique originating in China it was much in Vogue in Paris during the early decades of the twentieth century. Though hardly known here in Canada, some artists, notably A.J. Casson, made use of the process on occasion.