Petite collection d'art Gowans: Les chefs-d'œuvre de Rubens
This is a small French art-book series volume from 1908, the Petite collection d'art Gowans, reproducing paintings by Peter Paul Rubens in halftone plates. It presents Rubens's own work, reproduced through Franz Hanfstaengl's photographic process, for a general art-loving readership. The pictures are grey monochrome reproductions of baroque paintings: a dramatic mythological scene with a draped woman and armoured man, a family group with a child, a feathered-hat portrait of a woman, and a double portrait of a couple in lace collars. A designer could take from them the tonal range of baroque chiaroscuro, dense drapery folds, and formal portrait poses.
