Voyage d’Hermès

Voyage d’Hermès/Voyage of Hermès (2010)
Hermès
33 x 41cm, 9 colour plates press release

Even up until the very last years of his life on Earth, Moebius was just as prodigious as his glorious peak in the 1970s & 1980s and his style was still constantly growing in mastery of his nib (both on paper and later digitally on a Wacom Cintiq graphics tablet) with each ebb and flow ceaseless and never slowing down. Moebius would craft some of his most magnificent pieces of artwork commissioned for a new perfume line by the fashion house Hermès, Paris called Voyage d’Hermès (Voyage of Hermès), that despite being some of the most sublime masterpieces by Moebius ever committed to page just for a mere dossier de presse (press release) was sadly for one reason or another ultimately abandoned by Hermès!?

Of an edition of only 3100 the Voyage d’Hermès press release printed in Nava, Italy, comes sandwiched together by two pieces of thick hardboard and is held tightly together by a Hermès ribbon to protect the inside pages.

Voyage d’Hermès, dossier de presse
Voyage d’Hermès, dossier de presse

On the opening sheet reads “Les Mondes Élémentaires: Un Voyage Imaginé et Dessiné par Moebius” (The Elemental Worlds: An Imagined and Drawn Journey by Moebius) and underneath on the bottom-right hand side of the page an official Hermès embossed stamp pressed onto the paper. Behind the loose front sheet holds the soft leaves of parchment paper, carefully joined from end to end that fold out to reveal 9 vivid coloured illustrations of epic scale and depth.

Voyage d’Hermès, Les Mondes Élémentaires: Un Voyage Imaginé et Dessiné par Moebius

The 9 immersive images, each like nine wonders of the world, flow from page to page like visual poetry and told across air, land and sea. It follows a protagonist who resembles one of the repairmen from Le Monde d’Edena (The World of Edena) who is on a voyage of adventure following in the wings of a marvellous multicoloured bird.

Voyage d’Hermès
Voyage d’Hermès
Voyage d’Hermès
Voyage d’Hermès
Voyage d’Hermès
Voyage d’Hermès
Voyage d’Hermès
Voyage d’Hermès
Voyage d’Hermès

On the back hardboard is mounted a CD containing promotional product shots of the perfume Voyage d’Hermès bottle.

Voyage d’Hermès, CD
Voyage d’Hermès 1
Voyage d’Hermès 2
Voyage d’Hermès 3

 

[NSFW] Les Jardins d’Eros

[NSFW] Les Jardins d’Eros/The Gardens of Eros (2005)
Stardom
24 x 32cm, 14 black & white plates portfolio

Following in the spirit of the Eros X Libris erotic portfolio, Moebius would release another portfolio exploring sexuality under the Stardom imprint called Les Jardins d’Eros (The Gardens of Eros) of a signed and numbered limited edition of 400.

Les Jardins d’Eros explores erotica through the surreal dreamscapes of Désert “B” (of 40 Days Dans Le Désert “B”), drawing on the visual language of mythology, symbolism and the supernatural. Each black & white plate is elegantly and meticulously drawn by Moebius with exotic characters and scenarios in an imagined sensual pleasure garden.

Les Jardins d’Eros, portfolio front
Les Jardins d’Eros, portfolio back
Les Jardins d’Eros, portfolio inside
Les Jardins d’Eros, portfolio inside
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros
Les Jardins d’Eros

Released a year later within the pages of Senso Magazine N°24 on the theme of Cinéma, Moebius drew a unique short 8 page colour comic centred around a cartoon avatar version of the artist himself (a concept first introduced in La Déviation and expanded further in his autobiographical stream of consciousness tomes Inside Moebius) who plays an erotic film director shooting film scenes that parody his own plates from Les Jardins d’Eros.

Senso Magazine N°24, magazine
Senso Magazine N°24, inside
Senso Magazine N°24, Les Jardins d’Éros, p.1
Senso Magazine N°24, Les Jardins d’Éros, p.2-3
Senso Magazine N°24, Les Jardins d’Éros, p.4-5
Senso Magazine N°24, Les Jardins d’Éros, p.6-7
Senso Magazine N°24, Les Jardins d’Éros, p.8