Charpentier, Edmond (French, colourist, fl. c. 1910s–1940s)

Edmond Charpentier was a Paris-based colourist active from at least the late 1910s through the mid-1940s, specialising in the hand-colouring of illustrations for deluxe illustrated books, often using the pochoir technique. He collaborated with a number of prominent French illustrators, including Joseph Hémard, Albert Dubout, and Lucien Boucher, and contributed to high-quality bibliophile editions issued in limited runs.

His work appears in several notable publications, such as Voltaire’s L’Ingénu (1929), the Livre d’Or de la Légion Étrangère (1931), Anatole France’s Crainquebille (1934), and Rabelais’s Pantagruel (1944). Charpentier’s role was to execute the colouring of printed plates, adding a distinctive finish characteristic of interwar French illustrated book production.