Here is a beautiful original drawing made in watercolor and charcoal on paper by the artist Maurice Millière.

It depicts the portrait of a young woman.

This is an original drawing.

The work is signed at the bottom and dates from the 1920s. A very beautiful work that comes from a château.

Maurice Millière, born in Le Havre on December 12, 1871, and died in Yport on April 5, 1946, was a French painter, illustrator, and lithographer. He is one of the inventors of the "petite femme de Millière, a smiling Parisian woman". Maurice Millière was born in Le Havre in 1871. He came from the working class of Le Havre; his father was a merchant's employee.

Millière began by studying painting at the École des beaux-arts du Havre. He was in Paris from 1889 and joined the Arts décoratifs and also attended some of the Beaux-Arts workshops in Paris.

His first notable graphic works were posters and sheet music for, among others, Le Boulch or Le Divan japonais (1899).
From 1917, he published many representations of women in skimpy outfits: first in Fantasio (1917), then in Bagatelles, La Vie parisienne, Le Frou-frou, Le Sourire, Le Gai-Paris, etc.

At the end of 1920, he joined the République de Montmartre, a charity.

Contemporary with those of Louis Icart, his "little women" were very successful outside of France: in the 1920s, American periodicals reprinted his creations, as well as those of Suzanne Meunier or Georges Léonnec, other creators, associated at the time with "Gai Paris", meaning the Montmartre district and its many cabarets. Millière's "little women" were a source of inspiration for Alberto Vargas and Enoch Bolles, precursors of the "pin-up style".

These women were also available on postcards, posters, menus, etc. Part of this production, although erotic, was devoted to much bolder representations and thus discreetly marketed: These were watercolors of dominant women, engaging in flagellation, which were successful in England.

He stayed in the West Indies where he drew and painted paintings, especially of West Indian women. Several of these works were exhibited at the fairs of the Société Nationale des Artistes français and the Société Coloniale des Artistes français. He illustrated a work published in 1929 in Madinina "Queen of the West Indies": a study of Martinique customs. In August 1930, he was made Colonial Knight of the Legion of Honor.

The following year, he exhibited his paintings at the Salon des artistes français and his drawings at the Salon des humoristes.
He had opened a painting and drawing course in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
He died on April 5, 1946, in Yport. Carefully shipped via Colissimo, a superb and very decorative piece in perfect condition.

Dimensions: 51 cm x 60 cm (20 in x 23.6 in)

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