Rare menu card in Art Déco-style of the most legendary of Paris brasseries, »La Coupole«, 1930s

Beschreibung

LA COUPOLE. MONTPARNASSE. À la Coupole… les „chefs“ aussi sont des artistes! [Menu card]. Cover design by [Emile] Margerie. Paris: s.t., 1930s and 10.3.1967.

15,7 x 12,2 cm. [6 not numbered pages (2 printed on the inner side of covers, 4 bound in)]. Cliché and offset on white cardboard, stitched with two staples.

Rare menu card in Art Déco-style for drinks, meals and desserts served in one of the most legendary of the Paris brasseries.

»La Coupole« opened in 1927 on 102 Boulevard Montparnasse, in the heart of a quarter that housed a large artistic and literary community, many of them expatriates. Among the regular patrons were the Surrealists around André Breton and Marc Chagall, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller and Pablo Picasso, and after WWII Simone De Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Edith Piaf and Patti Smith. The iconic brasserie, dance club and its »Bar Américain« in particular is synonymous with modernist art, literature and the Paris intellectuals of the 20th century.

Design: The cover design of present menu card incorporates a witty water-colour in Art Déco-style by Emile Margerie, a painter, sculptor and stage designer, who also created piquant curtains for the famous Paris night club »Folies Bergère«. Margerie’s drawing shows the „chef de cuisine“ as a painter and the accompanying exclamation: „À la Coupole… les „chefs“ aussi sont des artistes!“, hence stressing the reputation of the »Coupole« as a meeting place for artists. The card was designed and printed in the 1930s, but in use at least until the 1960s. Present copy of the menu lists drinks, meals and a dinner menu (dated „10-3-67“), furthermore ice cream and desserts. An additional imprint on the rear cover mentions some company data.

Condition: Rear cover with old stamp and hand-written pricing of a Bucharest antiquarian, front cover slightly water-stained at lower margin, corners of cover in parts creased, otherwise very fine copy of this very hard to find ephemerum of distinctive importance for the cultural history of global arts and literature.

Reference: René Edouard-Joseph: Dictionnaire biographique des artistes contemporains. Vol. 2. Paris: 1931, p. 15 cit. WBIS/ABF (Margerie); see for comparison the copy of CIA Menu Collection (CIA 22-122), in the Conrad N. Hilton Library, New York. (URL: http://ciadigitalcollections.culinary.edu/digital/collection/p16940coll1/id/2852/rec/2, 6.9.2021).