Henri Charles GUÉRARD (Paris, 1846 - 1897) Seven chicks, fan project Pen and black ink and yellow oil on Vichy fabric. Signed lower left. 28,5 x 57 cm in the shape of a fan Provenance: - Descendants of the artist. - Galerie Paul Prouté, catalog n° 62, autumn 1975, Eventails d'Henri Guérard, n° 631. - Private collection, United States. Exhibition : Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, n° 256, Paris, 1895. Henri Guérard was particularly fond of the fan form, borrowed from Japanese art, on which he could give free rein to his imagination. As already underlined by Béraldi in 1888, "when he has time to spare, he amuses himself by painting strange fans, whose success is long established: on fabrics with varied colors and designs, he throws clowns, Japanese masks, lanterns, roquets, bells, boats etc., At the Salon of 1895, Guérard exhibited a series of six fans that were very successful. If they are not all directly inspired by Japanese subjects, they all count, by the stylization of the forms and the subtle arrangement of the decorative elements on the fabric, among the greatest successes of Japonism in France.