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Maître Nicolas CONSTANTY

441 - Fernand Toussaint (1873-1956) after - Le Sillon. Reprinted f…
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Estimate €20 - €30
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Description
Fernand Toussaint (1873-1956) after - Le Sillon. Reprinted from the 1897 work. Printed by Park South. 1982. 70x53cm. Original poster printed in zincography. Not canvas-backed. Condition A+, perfect state of conservation. This poster is a modern re-issue of a famous Art Nouveau poster originally designed around 1895-1897 by the Belgian painter and lithographer Fernand Toussaint for the artistic circle Le Sillon, a movement of artists founded in Brussels in 1893 that advocated a realistic and personal aesthetic against the dominant trends of Symbolism and Neo-Impressionism in Belle Époque Europe. The title "Le Sillon" literally means "the trench" or "the furrow", a metaphor for the work of creation and the effort to "make one's way" in the art world, an idea that the movement claimed as a principle of its artistic commitment. The original poster, produced as a lithograph by Imprimerie Chaix in Paris and included in the famous Les Maîtres de l'Affiche series (a subscription edition of small-format reproductions from 1895 to 1900 by Jules Chéret), depicts a pastoral female figure surrounded by flowers and wheat, holding a scythe or a sickle, an image symbolising both agricultural effort and the idea of the harvest, metaphors for the creative work that underpinned the vision of the Le Sillon circle. This iconography subtly articulated the Art Nouveau aesthetic (sinuous shapes, soft colours, integration of natural elements) with the intellectual and spiritual ambitions of the movement. The re-edition of this poster faithfully reproduces the design and spirit of the original from the late XIXᵉ century, in a reduced edition version (like those printed in Les Maîtres de l'Affiche).Fernand Toussaint, born in Brussels in 1873 and died in Ixelles in 1956, is mainly known as a painter of figures, female portraits and refined scenes, but he also distinguished himself as an exceptional lithographer in the Art Nouveau movement. He studied with Jean-François Portaels, then in Paris with Alfred Stevens, and took part in associations such as La Libre Esthétique, contributing to the spread of decorative art and printmaking. His creation of the Le Sillon poster remains one of the milestones of his career, as it is one of the few posters from this circle to have been reproduced in collections and published in prestigious series. This republication makes accessible today one of the emblematic examples of the Belgian Art Nouveau poster, at the crossroads between the history of graphic design, the European artistic movements of the Belle Époque and the symbolic iconography inherited from the artistic ideas of the late XIXᵉ century.
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About the sale Collection of an ink merchant, sale of posters n°17 and miscellaneous.
Auction location
Auction time 06/12/2026 at 1:30 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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