Les Champs Elysées or L'Escamoteur

This magnificent furnishing fabric, produced by the Swiss textile firm Favre-Petitpierre et compagnie around 1797, is a striking example of the toile de Jouy style that was fashionable across Europe in the late 18th century. The firm, also known as Petitpierre et cie, was renowned for its copperplate-printed cotton textiles featuring elaborate narrative and scenic compositions. This piece — known by the dual title 'Les Champs Elysées' or 'L'Escamoteur' (The Conjurer) — suggests a lively outdoor scene, possibly set in the famous Parisian promenade or a fairground, featuring entertainers or street performers. The use of copperplate printing, a technique favored by Favre-Petitpierre across many of their works, allowed for extraordinarily fine engraved detail impossible to achieve with woodblock methods alone.

At over ten feet long and five feet wide, this is a grand-scale piece intended as furnishing fabric — perhaps for curtains, bed hangings, or upholstery. Favre-Petitpierre's body of work spans mythological, historical, and genre scenes, and this piece fits their tradition of celebrating popular culture and public spectacle. The dual title hints at the theatrical ambiguity of the scene: the stately grandeur of the Champs-Élysées set against the trickster energy of a street magician, capturing the playful spirit of Revolutionary-era France.