Book of Designs. Binet, Rene. Esquisses Decoratives. Paris, Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, n.d. [1903] Folio,(2),14,(2)pp. and 60 fine litho plates each printed in a base colour (black, grey, sepia, dark green &c), 14 of which are pochoir coloured and a further 5 partly coloured by pochoir with one or two colours. There are 43 small illustrations in the text. Loose as issued in publisher's pictorial portfolio, cloth spine rebacked retaining original spine. the boards are somewhat rubbed and the ties are missing but a nice copy. Rene Binet (1866-1911), an architect best known for his Magasins du Printemps in Paris, and for the grand entrance to the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. Like many of the architect/designers of this period, Binet created designs in most areas of the applied arts. This folio has architectural details, and designs for furniture, jewellery, wallpaper, light fittings, wrought iron &c. somewhat apart from mainstream French Art Nouveau, many inspired by the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel's beautiful detailed drawings of marine micro-organisms which had become much admired by the 1890's, especially in Germany by Jugendstil designers such as Obrist, Endell, &c. But Binet's work is still firmly French.