The History of the Piollet Collection

It was in the mid-1950s that Luce Gavelle-Piollet, a numismatics expert, and her husband Michel Piollet, a painter, acquired the drawings from the workshop of Max Weldy, the greatest costume maker in interwar Paris.

These drawings, created between 1920 and 1940, are costume designs intended for the most prestigious Parisian stages: the Folies Bergère, the Casino de Paris, the Moulin Rouge, the Bataclan, the Concert Mayol, and many other legendary venues.

Nearly 3,000 works — watercolours, gouaches, pencil drawings — make up this exceptional collection. They are signed by around sixty European designers, including major names in art history: Erté, considered the father of Art Déco, George Barbier, Charles Gesmar (Mistinguett's personal designer), Umberto Brunelleschi, José de Zamora, Freddy Wittop, Jean Aumond, René Ranson, and many others.

Max Weldy, costumer to the world

Max Weldy founded his house in 1918, at 18 rue Saulnier, just steps from the Folies Bergère. He quickly became the principal costume maker for Parisian stages, overtaking Maison Pascaud, and achieved international reach: London, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Bombay, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Oslo, New York… At his peak, he produced nearly one and a half million costumes per year.

His genius lay in surrounding himself with the best European designers and acquiring the rights to reproduce their creations. The artists benefited too: they received royalties on costumes that circulated worldwide.

As war loomed, Weldy, apparently of Jewish origin, left for Florida in 1939 where he opened a new house. He worked primarily for the great American circuses before retiring in 1970.

An unimpeachable provenance

What makes the Piollet Collection unique, beyond its artistic quality, is its direct and traceable provenance. The drawings were rescued from Weldy's workshop by the Piollet family before any dispersal. No copies or forgeries could have been made, as only privileged family members had access to the originals for over half a century.

Today, the Piollet family has decided to reproduce a selection of these works as limited editions — certified digital lithographs (digigraphies), numbered from 50 to 200 copies depending on the subject — in order to share this exceptional heritage with the world, while preserving the rare and precious nature of each piece.

Each reproduction comes with a detailed certificate of authenticity mentioning the provenance, the artist, the estimated date and the edition number.