Un Air Embaume Parfume le Monde: L'Or de Rigaud. sa firme ses parfums

Wraps. Very Good. Scarce, with no copies located on OCLC FirstServe. N.d., circa 1914, when the fragrance "Un Air Embaume" was first introduced. 8vo. 24 by 21 cm. Unpaginated, 12 leaves, plus tissue guards and wraps, with nine of those being color plates. Rigaud as a parfumier dates back to 1852. At the turn of the century it created and marketed fragrances associated with celebrities of the day -- one fragrance was named after the opera star "Mary Garden" -- and the company might well have been a pioneer in such tie-ins. The company also consciously pursued the Anglo market, and capitalized on the Gallic vogue at the time for things English, by naming a number of its products in English. The company remains in business today, but its emphasis it now on home or ambient fragrances. In this glossy marketing brochure, intended as much to build the exotic, luxurious mystique of the companies fragrances as to peddle its specific products, the color plates capture perfectly the sinewy, rich aesthetic of the day, with equal amounts of Art Nouveau elegance; the overripe, almost lurid colors and styles of the Jugendstil, or the Teutonic version of Art Nouveau; and the softer, Rococo frivolity and flirty lightness epitomized by a Fragonard or Boucher. The Richepin poem that serves as a preface evokes the hedonistic, possibly decadent, sensuality that is the mood, or mix of moods, of the illustrations that follow. And so the names of perfumes are Prince Igor, Marthe Chenal (a French opera singer, who like Mary Garden, was particularly associated with Jules Massenet), Pres de Vous, Muses des Bois, l'heure charmante, lilas de Rigaud, Oeillet d'Andalousie, Mary Garden, and des Roses. The cream cover has foxing. Within the brochure is clean.