Design for the Poster for the 19th Annual Exhibition of the Société des Aquarellistes Français, Paris 1897

This large sheet is a design for the poster for the 19th annual exhibition of the Société des Aquarellistes Français, held in May and June of 1897. An impression of the finished poster is in the collection of the Musée Carnavalet in Paris. The Société des Aquarellistes Français was founded in 1879 at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris, by a group of artists that included Eugène Lami, Ferdinand Heilbuth, Gustave Doré and Jean-Georges Vibert. Boutet de Monvel joined the association in 1890 and exhibited there annually for many years.

The composition used in this design, however, may be dated several years earlier, since a close variant of it was first seen, with the title Un Conte de fées (A Fairy Tale), in a watercolour exhibited by Boutet de Monvel at the Société des Aquarellistes Français in 1891. The image was also used in the catalogue of that exhibition.