Shadow Theater Fan

In 1883, Henri Guérard contributed more than 200 etched illustrations of Japanese art objects to the book L'Art Japonais by Louis Gonse, one of the first serious studies of Japanese art. All of Guérard's subsequent work would rely on his clever combination of Japanese motifs with a contemporary French sensibility. In this fan design, Guérard's graceful silhouettes in Japanese costume acknowledge the late-nineteenth-century popularity of the shadow theater in Paris.