Georges Braque (1882-1963) - Peinture à l'huile

Georges Braque - Original gouache stencil print, 1929

Printed by Daniel Jacomet

Edition of 1500

Perfect condition

Sheet 21 x 27 cm

Stencil 15 x 19.5 cm

In 1929, the stencil is an extremely meticulous craft technique, primarily used for fashion and luxury Art Deco publishing.

The work rests on manually coloring a sheet on which the outlines have been pre-printed. Artisans cut with scalpels sheets of brass, zinc or celluloid — a plate for each shade, sometimes requiring up to 80 stencils for a single image. Using round brushes, sponges or cotton, colorists then apply gouache.

This method offers a unique rendering: blocks of pure colors, a matte surface with a perceptible relief and gradients impossible to reproduce with mechanical printing. Long and costly, the technique gradually faded at the beginning of the 1930s in light of the development of industrial printing processes.