Olympia-2015

of portions of a window, a few recorded only in photographic form. The displaysinclude those for seasonal windows (New Year, Back to School, etc.), thematicwindows (France and the Sea, the Hunt), and specific book or series launches(Larousse in Quarto, L’Histoire de France). Regrettably, the drawings are notsigned and we have been unable to identify the commercial artist(s) responsible forthe work, but it is a riot of bold blocks of colour, jaunty angles and classic midcenturytypography.From 1953 to the late 1960s the art director of Larousse was the noted graphicdesigner Jean Carlu, and it is likely he also played a role in the window designsproduced during that period. His iconic Père Noel for example, can be seen on aposter on the rear wall of a maquette from 1955, and flying over a Christmaswindow in a photograph of 1959. Carlu employed designers as diverse as Picart-le-Doux, Jean Colin, and the typographer Roger Excoffon; by the 1970s the publicitydepartment of Larousse employed as many as thirty people (Mollier & Dubot,Histoire de la librairie Larousse, 2012, p. 542).67. LECTIONARY, in Latin, a single leaf with three drawings, depicting StMichael vanquishing the devil, St Luke and Saints Simon and Juderespectively, delicately executed in ink, colours, shell gold and silver. NorthernItaly (?Lombardy), c. 1400.A complete leaf, 260 x 178 mm (200 x145 mm), 38 lines written in arounded gothic hand in dark brownink, ruled in plummet, three 3-lineinitials in blue or red with contrastingpenwork, headings in red; the silveroxidized; probably recovered from abinding and with consequent stainingand creasing, inner margin slightlytrimmed, verso very worn. £4500From a curious illustrated lectionaryof fine quality. Illustratedlectionaries of this sort seem to havebeen a very unusual genre in thelater Middle Ages and we have beenunable to locate any close parallels toour leaf. The picture-book mise-enpagesuggests a didactic function (theinstruction of minors, perhaps?). Thepresent leaf with readings for thefeasts of St Michael (29 September),St Luke (18 October) and Ss Simonand Jude (28 October), with readingsfrom the Gospels of Matthew, Lukeand John.