Catalogue illustré
This is a Paris exhibition catalogue of the Société des artistes français Salon, published by L. Baschet in 1879 for visitors to the annual display of French painting and sculpture. Its pages reproduce paintings in soft halftone: a reclining nude, a woman in a flowing white gown among trees, and a dim scene of a figure in a shadowy interior. A designer might take from them the tonal range of late nineteenth-century academic painting, with its soft edges, glowing highlights and dark backgrounds.
