Paul Jouve’s Falcon shows the bird of prey perched on a rocky summit, with mountain ridges in soft lavender, slate and ochre behind it. The falcon is drawn with Jouve’s characteristic economy. Bold, dark masses describe the folded wings, and quick, broken strokes render the mottled breast and feathered legs. Light touches of white bring out the plumage, and the amber eye and sharply hooked beak are picked out with precision. The landscape is reduced to flat, stylized planes in the Art Deco manner, which sets off the bird’s sculptural presence. With its upright stance, turned head and alert gaze, the falcon has the quiet dignity Jouve gave all his animals. He was less interested in portraying a specimen than a living character. The print is set in a deeply carved giltwood frame with ebonized panels, a Spanish Baroque-style surround whose warmth and weight complement the strength of the image.

About the Artist

Paul Jouve was born near Fontainebleau and is regarded as one of the greatest animal painters of the first half of the twentieth century and a defining figure of French Art Deco. He trained first with his father, the landscape painter and portraitist Auguste Jouve. He studied engraving and lithography as a teenager and exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1894. He traveled widely to observe animals firsthand, in Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, the United States and Indochina, and was the first resident artist of the Villa Abd-el-Tif in Algiers. From 1921 he exhibited with Jean Dunand, Jean Goulden and François-Louis Schmied as the celebrated Groupe des Quatre at the Galerie Georges Petit. He received major commissions, including paintings for the first-class lounge of the ocean liner Normandie in 1935. His illustrations for Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1919) are counted among the masterpieces of French Art Deco book design.