Model posing in Mucha's studio, Rue du Val de Grâce, Paris

Best known as an Art Nouveau painter and graphic designer, Alphonse Mucha portrayed beautiful young women in a distinct style of sensuous lines and lush decorative motifs in muted pastel hues. He first turned to photography to supplement this practice, photographing models in his studio as studies for his paintings. Here, the model is posed surrounded by both the tools of Mucha’s trade (plaster casts and an easel) and the fruits of his labor, including the 1894 poster for Gismonda, his first commercial success, and the printed silk panneau, L’Étoile du Soir, completed in 1902, visible in the background. Mucha made at least three photographs of this model in one sitting, the other two illustrating positions more applicable to the sinuous postures and draped figures of his painted women.