Très Parisien, 1923, No 7: 7. - FRILEUSE. - Très élégant manteau... 1923

This fashion plate from 1923, titled ‘Très Parisien’ and made with an unknown medium on paper, is by an anonymous artist. The image depicts an elegant woman in a patterned teal robe and fur trim. The flatness of the rendering makes you think about how this was made. It seems that this plate could be a precursor to screenprinting, given the evenness of the color and the consistent, repeated patterning of the robe. It's interesting how the artist chose to render the shadow of the feet, which is a hard black block. That flatness in juxtaposition with the fur trim opens up an interesting conversation around materiality and representation, surface, and depth. I'm reminded of Erté, but this piece is much more graphic in its approach. It embraces the qualities of graphic reproduction and makes a virtue of them. Ultimately, it is the artist's embrace of ambiguity that makes this image so seductive.