Stylogenyin the style of Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen

Traditions & vernacular · 1796–1939 · Western Europe, Central Europe

Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen

Also known as Images d'Épinal, Imagerie populaire, Neuruppiner Bilderbogen, Bilderbogen, Centsprenten (Dutch and Flemish)

Cheap single-sheet popular prints sold by pedlars across 19th-century Europe, led by the Pellerin imagerie at Épinal and the Neuruppin Bilderbogen. A black woodcut, and later a lithograph, was coloured by hand through stencils in a few flat colours that drift past the outlines: Napoleonic battles, saints, rows of soldiers to cut out, and stories told in grids of equal captioned cases, under a title in roman capitals, or Fraktur in Germany.

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A vintage-style illustrated French poster headed “PLANTONS DEMAIN” contains twelve bordered panels showing a boy planting and watering a tree, watching it grow, resting and reading beneath it, and tending it through autumn and winter. The final panel shows an adult and child planting a sapling together, with village buildings and countryside repeated in the backgrounds.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

Use it with care

Many sheets carry nationalist, militarist and colonial messages, from the Napoleonic legend to colonial campaigns such as the Tonkin war, and some show colonised peoples as 'savages' (the Kühn Robinson sheet captions 'die Wilden' slaughtering captives at a feast), so do not reproduce these figures as period charm; the Imagerie d'Épinal still trades under its name, so draw new sheets rather than copying its marks.

01

How it works

  • Print a black key from a woodblock or a lithographic stone, then lay three or four flat colours through cut stencils with a round brush, red, blue, yellow and brown, often adding green and more, letting them overlap and stray past the outlines instead of registering them tightly.
  • Repeat the figure: march identical soldiers in rows along ground strips, or set saints, uniforms and trades in equal compartments, so the sheet works as a catalogue, a set to cut out or one number in a series to collect.
  • Tell a story in a grid of equal ruled cases, often twelve, read left to right and top to bottom, with a caption or couplet lettered beneath each case.
  • Head the sheet with a centred title in bold roman capitals (on German sheets often a flourished Fraktur), hold the picture in a ruled frame and set the narrative in a justified text block beneath it, closing with the printer's imprint and the sheet number.
  • Draw stylised, frontal figures in clear contour, closer to academic drawing on the lithographed sheets, and single out the emperor or saint at the centre, isolated against the troops and at times drawn larger, as with the most valiant at the Pyramids, stacking a battle in bands from a foreground frieze of riders to rows of troops on the horizon rather than modelling deep perspective.
  • Speak to a broad, partly unlettered public with patriotic battles that spread the Napoleonic legend as propaganda, saints, fairy tales, moral lessons, games and cut-out toys, cheap enough to sell through pedlars at fairs and door to door.

Épinal, Vosges (Lorraine): Jean-Charles Pellerin's imagerie, founded in 1796 in a local print trade attested from the 17th century, and the leading French centre from about 1810, with rivals such as Adrien Dembour and, from 1840 to 1851, Dembour & Gangel in Metz. In Prussia, Neuruppin: Gustav Kühn's firm (his father's woodcut sheets predate 1787; last sheet 1939) and Oehmigke & Riemschneider (from 1835). Some 300 printing houses across Europe made such sheets; the Imagerie d'Épinal survives as a heritage firm.

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Abundant decoration, Gradients, Non-representational, Straight photography, Dynamic asymmetry, Collage & layering, Experimental & distorted

Palette

  • #efe6cc
  • #1c1a17
  • #b8283a
  • #2f56a0
  • #e4bb3a
  • #3f8a5c

Typefaces

  • Bold modern-face (Didone) roman capitals for the centred title, sometimes shaded or outlined

    'BATAILLE D'IÉNA.', 'ARMÉE FRANÇAISE, CHASSEURS A PIED.'

  • Small roman text in a justified block beneath the picture, with the imprint ('De la fabrique de Pellerin, imprimeur-libraire, à Épinal') in capitals and 'Propriété de l'Éditeur. Déposé.' in italic

  • Words cut into the woodblock together with the figures, a habit from before the Revolution, when imagiers could not use cast type

  • Captions lettered on the lithographic stone beneath each case in a Fraktur-derived German hand with long s, and flourished Fraktur titles with swash capitals, on Neuruppin sheets

Known for

  • François Georgin for Pellerin, Épinal, 'Bataille d'Iéna' (1834), stencil-coloured woodcut

    shaded capital title, a cavalry frieze around Napoleon, a justified text block and the imprint 'De la fabrique de Pellerin, imprimeur-libraire, à Épinal (Vosges)', Bibliothèque nationale de France

  • François Georgin for Pellerin, 'La Colonne' (1837), woodcut coloured au pochoir on laid paper, 65 x 41.2 cm, a column with a soldier among medallions of Napoleonic scenes (Arcole, Egypt, Austerlitz), Mucem, inv. 1986.81.61

  • Thirty-one large pochoir-coloured woodcuts from the Pellerin firm designed by François Georgin between 1820 and 1839, each showing one event in the life of Napoleon, Graphic Arts Collection, Princeton University Library (promised gift)

  • Pellerin, Épinal, 'Armée française, Chasseurs à pied' (1855), stencil-coloured lithograph ('Imprimerie Lith. de Pellerin')

    four rows of riflemen, with buglers and officers, on ground strips, to cut out, Bibliothèque nationale de France

  • Pellerin & Cie, 'La Guerre des jeux', Imagerie d'Épinal no. 408 (after 1891), attributed to Henry Hennault

    stencil-coloured lithograph, a story in twelve captioned cases (4 x 3) in which chessmen, dominoes, cards and dice go to war, Musée de l'Image, Épinal, D 996.1.1261 B

  • Dembour & Gangel, Metz, 'planche de saintetés' (1840-1851), stencil-coloured woodcut from blocks cut for Lacour of Nancy, 48 saints in 6 x 8 compartments with their attributes, Musée de l'Image, Épinal, 2010.5.13996 B

  • Gustav Kühn, Neuruppin, 'Acht Stadtansichten', Neuruppiner Bilderbogen no. 2923 (catalogued as 1856; such sheets are usually undated), hand-coloured lithograph, 41.3 x 34 cm, Museum Neuruppin, B-0524-K

  • Gustav Kühn, Neuruppin, 'Robinson's Reisen und Abenteuer', Neuruppiner Bilderbogen no. 1736 (19th century)

    twelve cases with German captions beneath, a flourished hand-lettered Fraktur title with swash capitals and the margin line 'Neu-Ruppin, zu haben bei Gustav Kühn'

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.

Rule out a choice, read the prompt, or blend in another style: take this brief to Mix styles.

04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleImagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen1796–1939 · Western Europe, Central Europe

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Sources

  1. Encyclopædia Universalis, 'Épinal (image d')' (any brightly coloured popular print roughly cut on wood and stencil-coloured; Épinal attested from the 17th century, leading centre from about 1810; about 100 workers in 1830, some 40 wood engravers and 60 colourists, usually children; Pinot's rival firm of 1860 and his move to lithography; themes including militarism and colonialism; earlier centres at Lille, Orléans, Cambrai, Beauvais, Nancy and Metz): https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/image-d-epinal/
  2. Larousse, Encyclopédie, 'image d'Épinal' (Jean-Charles Pellerin, 1756-1836, first to print and sell such images in series; figures and words engraved on wood, later stone; rarely black and white, usually stencil-coloured in red, blue, yellow and brown; sold by colporteurs to a largely rural public that often could not read; Tonkin and Franco-Prussian war subjects): https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/wd/187254
  3. Fondation Napoléon, 'Napoléon, une image d'Épinal' (founding in 1796; Georgin's sixty-plus large imperial woodcuts of about 35 x 56 cm; black outlines printed first, then colours applied through cut metal stencils with a round brush, overlaps making further hues; lithography from 1850; the first plate of the Napoleonic series registered on 25 May 1829; the largest figures the most valiant (Bataille des Pyramides); denunciations, censorship and seizures, and the images' 'grande force de persuasion', 'l'une des premières publicités modernes au service de Napoléon'; 10 to 15 million images a year before 1914): https://www.napoleon.org/histoire-des-2-empires/articles/napoleon-une-image-depinal
  4. Wikipédia (fr), 'Imagerie d'Épinal' (stencil colouring with a round brush; lithography about 1850; riddles, paper dolls and soldiers for children from the mid-19th century, paper theatres and constructions later; closure, recapitalisation in 1984 and modern printing from 1989): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagerie_d%27%C3%89pinal
  5. Wikipedia (de), 'Neuruppiner Bilderbogen' (Johann Bernhard Kühn's woodcut sheets before 1787; Gustav Kühn's lithographic press of 1825; stencil colouring by poorly paid women and children; runs of 40,000; peep-show sheets with mirror-script captions and topical news sheets; 'Neu-Ruppin, zu haben bei Gustav Kühn'; Oehmigke & Riemschneider from 1835; last Kühn sheet no. 10,337 in 1939; about 300 printing houses across Europe): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuruppiner_Bilderbogen
  6. Wikipedia (de), 'Münchener Bilderbogen' (Braun & Schneider, fortnightly 1848-1898, 1,230 sheets, wood engraving, contributors): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchener_Bilderbogen
  7. Mucem, 'imagerie ancienne, LA COLONNE.', François Georgin and Pellerin, 1837, inv. 1986.81.61: https://mucem.org/notice/c/4031424
  8. Princeton University Library, Graphic Arts Collection, 'Apotheosis in graphic arts' (31 pochoir-coloured Pellerin woodcuts designed by Georgin, 1820-1839): https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2015/02/02/apotheosis-in-graphic-arts/
  9. Ministère de la Culture, POP/Joconde, Musée de l'Image, Épinal: Pellerin & Cie, 'La Guerre des jeux', D 996.1.1261 B: https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/M0537001345 ; Dembour & Gangel, planche de saintetés, 2010.5.13996 B: https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/M0537053462 ; Dembour, 'Saint Donat', 2019.1.6 C: https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/M0537070137
  10. Museum Neuruppin, Neuruppiner Bilderbogen no. 2923, 'Acht Stadtansichten', B-0524-K (more than 60 stencil colourists, mostly women and children, at Kühn's around 1850): https://brandenburg.museum-digital.de/object/6065
  11. Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 'Scheibenbild', Gustav Kühn, no. 8204, about 1885: https://smb.museum-digital.de/object/111133
  12. Victoria and Albert Museum, Oehmigke & Riemschneider, Neuruppin, hand-coloured lithograph of characters from Norma, S.2858-2009: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1141321/
  13. Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica), via Wikimedia Commons: Georgin, 'Bataille d'Iéna', Pellerin [1834], btv1b550019638: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bataille_d%27I%C3%A9na_-_estampe_-_Georgin_-_btv1b550019638.jpg ; Pellerin, 'Armée française. Chasseurs à pied', 1855, btv1b69381772: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arm%C3%A9e_fran%C3%A7aise._Chasseurs_%C3%A0_pied_-_estampe_-_btv1b69381772.jpg
  14. Wikimedia Commons, 'Robinson's Reisen und Abenteuer', Neuruppiner Bilderbogen no. 1736, G. Kühn (image from the Zisska auction house): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robinsons_Reisen_und_Abenteuer_Neuruppiner_Bilderbogen_No1736.jpg
  15. Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg, virtual exhibition 'Der Münchener Bilderbogen': 'Geschichte des Bilderbogens' (the term Bilderbogen taking hold only in the 1820s in Vienna and the 1830s in Munich; 16th-century forerunners hand-coloured in few garish colours inside thick black outlines): https://www.uni-regensburg.de/bibliothek/ub/veranstaltungen/virtuelle-ausstellungen/der-engel-lichterglanz-und-schwarze-narretei-winter-im-muenchener-bilderbogen/der-muenchener-bilderbogen/geschichte-des-bilderbogens ; 'Der Verlag Braun & Schneider' (wood engravings printed in black, or stencil-coloured in delicate translucent colours for twice the price): https://www.uni-regensburg.de/bibliothek/ub/veranstaltungen/virtuelle-ausstellungen/der-engel-lichterglanz-und-schwarze-narretei-winter-im-muenchener-bilderbogen/der-muenchener-bilderbogen/der-verlag-braun-schneider ; 'Der künstlerische Bilderbogen' (the first sheets unsigned, most later ones signed, the illustrators' names a selling point to an art-minded educated middle class, unlike anonymous penny ware): https://www.uni-regensburg.de/bibliothek/ub/veranstaltungen/virtuelle-ausstellungen/der-engel-lichterglanz-und-schwarze-narretei-winter-im-muenchener-bilderbogen/der-muenchener-bilderbogen/der-kuenstlerische-bilderbogen
  16. Wikipedia (nl), 'Centsprent' (cheap Dutch and Flemish picture sheets, roughly coloured by brush or shifted stencil, some telling stories in 8 to 48 small scenes): https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centsprent

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