Entirely appropriate to its purpose is the "Nouveau Cirque" advertisement, in which clowns, bare-back riders, and performing animals of all kinds-from a frog to an elephant-disport themselves with the utmost _abandon_. From this to the "Cacao Van Houten," is a far cry. From the point of view of the advertiser, Willette has done nothing better than his life-size study of a Dutch waitress in national costume. The thing is very decorative, and succeeds admirably in attracting attention: another and more complicated design for the same firm is only a shade less successful. This is entitled "La loi defendent le cacao contre le chocolat." The other posters of this artist include the rare "Petite National," the "Evenement Parisien" (which was, I believe, suppressed), the "Courrier Francaise," the "Exposition Charlet," and the "Elysee Montmartre." The posters of Willette are marked by variety and ingenuity of invention, and there is little doubt that they will be of permanent value as revelations of a talent as individual as it is powerful. If the artistic poster is an unimportant incident in the career of Willette, it is still more so in that of Forain, whose essays in this direction have been few and far between. Forain is known to nearly every artist in Europe as a great master of black and white. Few, if any, can approach him in technical dexterity, few can express so much in so few lines. Moreover, to his technical mastery is added a searching power of criticism which gives to his work a further, and a most important, interest. In his desire to depict the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he (no doubt unconsciously) becomes a moralist. He depicts life from no sentimental point of view; he can be realistic without seeming to appreciate the tragedy which is of the very essence of realism, so that on seeing one of his illustrations of modern life, one receives, apart from technical delight, a distinctly literary impression. Of his posters, perhaps the earliest is one unsigned and without lettering, representing an illuminated garden, in which a woman is depicted in the midst of an explosion of fireworks. Subsequent to this comes a bill to advertise one of the novels of Dubut de Laforest, which bears the artist's signature. The design which announces Forain's political drawings for the "Figaro" is of slight importance, as it was not originally intended for a poster. In spite of this it is by no means easy to meet with. Of greater interest is the "Exposition des Arts de la Femme." It was, however, only when Forain received a commission to produce an illustrated advertisement for a cycle show that he achieved a really memorable poster, a poster of real charm and rare [Illustration: 0112] [Illustration: 0114]