Galerie des belles amours (A Gallery of Famous Lovers) is the perfect subject for Hémard’s colourful stencilling, an opportunity not missed by the best-known Paris publisher of art books in the 1930s, René Kieffer.

From Adam and Eve, via Sappho and Eunice, Sophie and Mirabeau, to Napoleon I and Josephine, the album of prints and short poems is illustrated with humour and lightness by the designer, who also wrote the verses.

Galerie des belles amours was published in a limited numbered edition of 1000 copies.