Maurice Eliot - Fan Project - Lithograph

1904
Signed in the plate at the bottom right “Maurice Eliot 04”
Exhibition: Cabourg, Villa du temps retrouvé, March-November 2023

This fan-shaped lithograph represents an elegant young woman from the gilded age, leaning on a small table in front of a half-open book and a bouquet of flowers. She seems lost in her thoughts, while in the background small figures, dressed in outfits from another era than hers, dance the farandole in front of the Moulin-Rouge.
The artist undoubtedly sought to show us what the young woman is reading, or the memory she has of a costume ball at the Moulin Rouge, like the one given in 1902 for the designer Gavarni during of which the participants had to come dressed as in the time of the latter, that is to say the July Monarchy (1830-1848), or the idea she has of a spectacle which she is going to attend.
The fact that Maurice Eliot left the left part of the fan in reserve suggests that it was designed as an advertising item or to serve as a program at a ball. Given its dating, it could have been created for the Monnier ball, organized on June 1, 1904 at the Casino de Paris for the benefit of the humorist cartoonists' relief fund. This celebration marked the date of creation of the Association of Cartoonists, whose presidency was entrusted to Charles Leandre. Counting among Maurice Eliot's best friends, so much so that in their youth their comrades nicknamed them "Hero and Leandre", Leandre was able to call on him to design a fan to sell as a souvenir of this celebration.