Les Blanchet, art presses workshop

La Gazette Drouot, Anne Doridou-Heim

The dispersal of all the equipment from the last high-quality relief printer is a small event for lovers of the book and print trades.

It certainly won't be the most important sale of the year, yet Aymeric Rouillac, with the dynamism that drives him, enthuses about this printing workshop, one of the last still in operation near Paris, and which has played a part in the history of French engraving since the end of the19th century. Jacques Beltrand, son of Tony Beltrand, co-founder with Auguste Lepère of the magazine L'Estampe moderne and friend of Maurice Denis, continued the family tradition by opening a workshop in Boulogne-Billancourt," recalls the auctioneer. He then sold it to Robert Blanchet (1921-2009). He continued in the same vein for several decades, putting his expertise as a wood presser at the service of artists, writers and art publishers, before handing over to his son Gérard. The workshop ceased operations for good in 2017. In the meantime, luxury works were printed on his Stanhope presses from the19th century - each of the two models, in working order, is estimated at between €10 ,000 and €15 ,000 - while the Victoria platinum press ( €500/800) was used to print books by Virginia Woolf, among others. The typefaces, sold in several lots, form exceptional ensembles, in particular the "Augustaux", created by Lyon printer and typographer Louis Perrin in 1846. Dissatisfied with Didot typefaces, which were too modern for his taste to print a work devoted to Lyon's ancient inscriptions, he himself designed a new alphabet, mainly in capitals, inspired by Roman lapidary inscriptions found in the capital of Gaul, before calling in a foundryman to make them in lead. Most have been destroyed, but those preserved today are extremely rare documents.