F Guillot Pelletier Calendar

Alphonse Mucha worked during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, creating paintings, advertisements and postcards for various companies.

He quickly became a popular artist due to his use of bold colours, women in different poses and art nouveau style.

The F Guillot Pelletier Calendar is a decorative design created on a medium colour lithograph. Like Mucha's many other pieces of works, this design includes a young woman as a central figure.

The brown haired beauty is hard to miss as she leans on what appears to be a hammer and anvil, perhaps acknowledging the need and for women within the workplace at the height of the industrial revolution.

The woman is wearing a dress that is likely fitting for the harshness of factory working life.

The calendar clearly states two dates, these being 1838 and 1898, with the name F. Guillot Pelletier in bold letters, along with the city Orleans.

This references Guillot who was the founder and manufacturor of wrought iron/cast iron goods in nineteenth century France. Its activity started in Orleans in 1838.

There are many intricate designs in this piece, swirls and almost Celtic like designs are within the painting.

There also appears to be many drawings showing papers with buildings and various sketches denoted on them. Even the swirling designs are etched into what appear to be wrought iron gates, a nod to the founder Pelletier.

The F Guillot Pelletier Calendar is just one of Mucha's famous pieces that highlight the different states of life, work, happiness, leisure, theater and even the seasons. He will forever be remembered as one of the leading artists for the art nouveau period that was especially popular in France between 1890 and 1910.