The remarkably prolific French illustrator Jacques Touchet illustrated more than 65 books in a career spanning nearly four decades, and worked for all the major publishing houses of the period – René Kieffer, Briffaut, Piazza, Éditions de le Belle Étoile, Babou, and Rameau d’Or.

A pupil of illustrator and engraver Paul Renouard and caricaturist Louis Morin, he started his career in magazine illustration and advertising; it was a 1918 self-published album of sketches of his experiences as a prisoner-of-war in Salonika (Thessalonica) that launched his book illustration.

Pierre Louÿs’ Les aventures du Roi Pausole for Rombaldi in 1937 was his twenty-fifth commission and the La Fontaine Contes for Éditions de le Belle Étoile his thirty-first – we have included these two titles to demonstrate how such a popular mainstream illustrator handled Louÿs’ and La Fontaine’s rollicking tales.

Similar artists

George Barbier – French art-deco illustrator defining 1920s fashion and erotic publications.
Paul-Émile Bécat – French illustrator of refined erotic fine editions from the 1920s.
Jean Berque – French interwar bibliophile illustrator of a similar sensual tone.
André Collot – French illustrator of refined erotic editions in the period.
Jean-Gabriel Daragnès – French engraver, printer and illustrator of fine editions.
André Lambert – French illustrator of refined interwar erotic editions.
Sylvain Sauvage – French art deco illustrator of refined livre d’artiste editions.