Call Number:

Item 0065

Repository:

University of Delaware Library Special Collections

Extent:

1 volume

Language:

French

Preferred Citation:

MSS 0093, Item 0065, Établissements Artistiques Parisiens, Album des Menus, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Date:

1935 (inclusive)

Creator:

Établissements Artistiques Parisiens

Form:

Menus and Scrapbooks

Abstract:

This scrapbook of menu designs was created by French printing house Établissements Artistiques Parisiens in 1935 to showcase the firm's wide range of print styles and graphic designs.

Établissements Artistiques Parisiens was a printing house that produced menus, postcards, business cards, and more, founded by J.R. Cornet with D. Delattre serving as president and general manager. The company won a gold medal at the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life) for a postcard set designed by French painter, illustrator, and engraver Georges Géo-Fourrier (1898-1966).

Information derived from the collection.

This scrapbook of menu designs was created by French printing house Établissements Artistiques Parisiens in 1935 to showcase the firm's wide range of print styles and graphic designs.

The scrapbook contains one hundred and twenty-two blank menu templates mounted on sixteen unpaginated leaves of black paper. The printer's 1935 price list is tipped-in to the front flyleaf. The collection represents a wide range of print styles for menus, though the size of these examples is standard with few exceptions: 17 x 8.5 cm single sheet, printed recto and 14 x 14 cm half-fold, printed-verso. Each menu is printed with a number that corresponds to the price list at the front of the volume.

While offering many examples of Art Deco design, the menu styles presented are diverse and range from elegant gilt-embossed script or bold and bright deco block lettering to full-color cartoon scenes or rococo-style pastoral scenes. Some templates merely include the word "Menu," while many more feature decorative scenes evoking duck hunting, weddings, nationalism, children, humor, and pastoral landscapes.

The album is bound with green boards with a fraying black cloth spine. The title "ALBUM DES MENUS" is handwritten on the cover. The menus are pasted onto black paper with wax paper interleaved. There are a few annotations and sketches throughout.