George Barbier La Paresse Pochoir Hand-coloured, plate-signed pochoir from Falbalas & Fanfreluches. "Laziness" is part of Barbier's "Seven Deadly Sins" series from the Almanac of 1925. Here Barbier captures the raptures of pure indolence and indulgence: the pillowed decor imported from the Turkish Harem into Parisian homes, the theatrical statement of the cigarette holder, the Persian peacocks freed from their cages as symbolically as the New Woman fled hers. Never remiss in featuring the latest fashion statement, Barbier shows the women in the new silk lounging pajamas from the Far East. Barbier sourced the Art Deco designs for this scene from both the Far and Middle East and then blended them with Euro-deco elements into a highly distinctive formula for "Art Deco". Amazingly, the collective spirit of the 1920's made it all gel - made it cohesively "work" over an astonishingly swift and defining period of time. +++++++ This famous illustrated almanac series was produced from 1922 to 1926 only and depicted high-society life in Paris - the fashion, social and artistic capital of the early inter-war years. Each issue contained a small diary and notation section, an introduction by one of the leading social/cultural doyens of the day, a decorative cover and twelve fashion plates (one for each month of the year), hand-coloured via stencil and watercolour/gouache. +++++++ Further Ref.: "Art Deco Costumes By George Barbier" (Introduction by Madeleine Ginsburg, Curator, V&A Museum, London). +++++++ Approx.image size h. 6.25in X w. 4.125in; h. 15.9cm X w. 10.5cm; Overall h. 9.75in X w. 6.375in; h. 24.8cm X w. 16.2cm