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that with some the "Mévisto à l'Horloge" will be deemed his best design, but it can in no sense be considered his most original. It represents the actor as Pierrot, and is graceful and pleasing rather than characteristic; indeed, one would almost think that in designing it the artist had been at pains to conceal his personality. Nor is the "Salon des Cent"-a charming and delicate little lithograph-in spite of the ingenuity and fantasy of its grouping of Pierrot, Harlequin and Columbine, the most noteworthy of Ibels' posters. We see him at his most original, in an advertisement for the illustrated paper entitled "l'Escar-mouche," to which he, together with Lautrec, Vuillard, Willette, and Anquetin, contributed drawings. It represents a café of the lower class, such as abounds in the workmen's quarter of Paris. The enormously fat patron enthroned behind the metal-topped bar, the waitress, cloth in hand, clad in her slovenly dress, the ouvriers in typical blue blouses, are studies in which accurate portraiture has been but slightly sacrificed to grotesqueness. The whole scene is admirably conceived, and the colour scheme, though very restrained, is certainly telling. Those who can do so should secure a proof before letters of this work, for the lettering is, I believe, not by the artist himself, and mars the effect of the design, although not in a very marked degree. Another interesting bill is that done for Mévisto's performances at the Scala music-hall; this is of great size and striking originality. But if grotesque force, and the power of reducing scenes of modern lower-class life into decoration, are Ibels' most pronounced characteristics, he can produce posters of the suavest charm. Amongst all the affiches I know, none seems to me more delightful than this artist's "Irène Henry." The café chantant singer whom it represents is justly a popular favourite with the Parisian public from the fact that she infuses into her performances no small amount of personality; moreover, her art is marked by grace and finish. Those who would see her as she appears to audiences at the Horloge, without going there, have only to look at Ibels' poster. With the rarest felicity, he has caught her physical individuality. She is represented in the act of singing in the open air to a crowd in the café, lighted by the familiar circle of white lamps. The line of the figure is most expressive: violet is the predominating colour. This poster is worthy a place in the French music hall series, which includes those designed by Lautrec for Jane Avril, by Steinlen for Yvette Guilbert, and by an artist whom I am about to consider, Anque-tin, for Marguerite Dufay.
So far as I know, Anquetin has only produced two affiches of importance, but each
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