Lettres Décoratives: A Century of French Sign Painters’ Alphabets

Morgane Côme (introduction) is a sign painter based in Quimperlé, France. After working as a graphic designer in London for five years, she discovered sign painting during a trip to New York City. Workshops with Pierre Tardif and Mike Meyer in 2014 sparked her passion for the craft, which she has pursued ever since. In 2016, she returned to France and established her studio in Brittany, where she creates bespoke hand-painted lettering for independent businesses. Passionate about preserving the craft’s heritage, she shares her knowledge through workshops and archival research. Côme is currently writing a book on the history and practice of sign painting in France, to be published by L’Échappée in the fall of 2026.

From the Introduction

Hippolyte Bellangé, C’est beau les arts, 1823.

Decorative painting, encompassing all manner of figurative art, faux finishes, trompe-l’œil, and ornamentation used to adorn walls in castles, churches, museums, and luxurious interiors, had established long-standing traditions by this time. But only in the nineteenth century did painters make alphabets into primary decorative elements. Indeed even then, many of the letters painted on signboards, canvas awnings, and vehicles remained simple in form, following inherited models of Roman square capitals and modern variants used in printing type. The new demand for eye-catching signs called for significant change in perspective.

The trade that answered this call was probably improvised at first. As one commentator has reckoned, “Before the spread of formal training, [the sign painting trade] did not exist, for the simple reason that there was no real need for it. . . . Born only in the nineteenth century, it developed alongside education in the field.” Building on lessons from other modes of decorative painting, gleaning insights that passed from city to city, and drawing on the latest trends in typography, lithography, and other graphic media, the sign painter (le peintre d’enseignes or le peintre en lettres) seems to have invented the profession on the job.

J. J. Grandville, poster advertising Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux, 1840.

As a new figure about town, the sign painter quickly aroused the curiosity of French intellectuals and artists. Also called a building painter (peintre en bâtiment), by the 1820s he features in illustrated prints by the likes of Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet and Hippolyte Bellangé, appearing as an independent worker of somewhat precarious standing. Parisian heralds of urban life celebrated his new creations, while detractors recoiled from his sometimes eccentric letterforms. An 1840 poster for an illustrated book by caricaturist J. J. Grandville humorously depicts the public’s fascination with the sign painter’s work. In 1858 author Victor Fournel mused admiringly, “When traveling by omnibus or hansom cab, we have nothing better to do than look at the signs, a pastime full of charm for one who knows how to discover the beautiful side of things.”

Pagethrough

Contents

Introduction

Rediscovering a Two-Hundred-Year-Old Craft Morgane Côme

Portfolio Selections

1875
Modèles de lettres: Extrait des vingt premières années du Journal-manuel de peintures
Model Letters: Extracts from the First Twenty Years of the Journal-Manual of Painting
Honoré Opin, Jean-Jacques Petit, and Georges-Adolphe Bisiaux (journal editors)

1882
Modèles de lettres, deuxième série: Extrait des deuxième et troisième séries du Journal-Manuel de peintures
Model Letters, Volume 2: Extracts from the Second and Third Series of the Journal-Manual of Painting
Pierre Chabat (journal editor)

1882
Modèles de lettres sur vingt tons de fonds différents
Model Letters on Twenty Different Background Tones
Nicolas Glaise

1891
Nouveaux modèles de lettres
New Model Letters
Adolphe Botzum

1895
Modèles de lettres pour peintre en bâtiment: Fantaisie et perspective
Model Letters for Building Painters: Fancy and Perspective
Etienne-Anatole Ducompex

1903
Nouvel album de lettres peintes
New Album of Painted Letters
Paul Fleury

1903
Lettres et enseignes art nouveau
Art Nouveau Letters and Signs
E. Mulier

1907
Décorations peintes pour devantures et intérieurs de magasins
Painted Decorations for Shop Fronts and Interiors
Henry Guédy (editor)

1909
Lettres et enseignes, 2e série
Letters and Signs, Volume 2
Marc Bordère

circa 1910s
Nouveau recueil pratique de lettres modernes à l’usage des peintres
New Practical Collection of Modern Letters for Painters
Louis Ramade

circa 1910s
Nouveau recueil pratique d’enseignes décoratives à l’usage des peintres
New Practical Collection of Decorative Signs for Painters
Louis Ramade

circa 1932
Modèles de lettres modernes
Models of Modern Letters
Georges Léculier

Index
Image Credits, Copyright, and Sources
About the Contributors
Acknowledgments

Details