Établissements Artistiques Parisiens, Album des Menus

This scrapbook of menu designs was created by French printing house Établissements Artistiques Parisiens in 1935 to showcase the firm's wide range of print styles and graphic designs.

The scrapbook contains one hundred and twenty-two blank menu templates mounted on sixteen unpaginated leaves of black paper. The printer's 1935 price list is tipped-in to the front flyleaf. The collection represents a wide range of print styles for menus, though the size of these examples is standard with few exceptions: 17 x 8.5 cm single sheet, printed recto and 14 x 14 cm half-fold, printed-verso. Each menu is printed with a number that corresponds to the price list at the front of the volume.

While offering many examples of Art Deco design, the menu styles presented are diverse and range from elegant gilt-embossed script or bold and bright deco block lettering to full-color cartoon scenes or rococo-style pastoral scenes. Some templates merely include the word "Menu," while many more feature decorative scenes evoking duck hunting, weddings, nationalism, children, humor, and pastoral landscapes.

The album is bound with green boards with a fraying black cloth spine. The title "ALBUM DES MENUS" is handwritten on the cover. The menus are pasted onto black paper with wax paper interleaved. There are a few annotations and sketches throughout.