One of my friends (who sometimes comments under the name Palle "Nybyggeren") recently lent me his copy of the Three Musketeers because it has the most amazingly etchings in it. These are atributed to one Maurice Leloir, a French artist and period costume expert with whom I was not previously familiar. A bit of research shows that in fact the etchings are really engravings, done on wood by one Jules Huyot, most probably after Leloir's water colour sketches. I love this kind of work. With the simplest of methods and a pure quality of line Leloir and Huyot manage to create beautiful textures across the full range of light and shadow.
As a body of illustration work, the books (two volumes) are amazing with 250 well detailed illustrations featuring a wealth of period costumes. One wonders at how accurate they really are, but given Leloir's reputation I suppose they are the best possible. When he died, Leloir left a collection of 2,000 authentic costumes.
No comments:
Post a Comment