The plates for Le Bonheur du Jour wee amongst the largest and most carefully meditated of Barbier's designs. So ambitious was this album that it took him from 1920 to 1924 to complete it to his satisfaction. A study of manners and fashion, it was designed to appeal both to those who like to link the present to the past, and to observers of the current scene.

Barbier saw similarities between the period after the Napoleonic Wars and his own post-Great War era, with dandies and their ladies free at last to enjoy frivolities and sensuality.

Group of six lithographs, hand-coloured in pochoir by Henri Reidel after Barbier, some with fully coloured backgrounds. Framed and glazed, overall size: 52 x 38.5cm.

C