Four signed gouaches of stunt planes. CAVÉ, Lucien.

An attractive group of deftly executed images by Lucien Cavé, in the 1930s "perhaps the world's foremost artist specializing in aerial subjects" (Aviation). Two of the planes were flown by sparring partners Marcel Doret and Michel Détroyat, among the most celebrated French pilots of the day. The four images comprise: Marcel Doret's distinctive candy-striped Dewoitine D.27/53; the Morane-Saulnier MS 405 (prototype of France's major fighter of the Second World War); Michel Détroyat's Morane-Saulnier MS 230, the main French elementary military trainer of the period; and the Potez 53, winner of the 1933 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe. It was Détroyat who greeted Lindbergh in Paris at the end of his solo transatlantic flight, going on to work as Marshal Pétain's personal pilot. Little is known of Lucien Cavé (1894-1967), who was official painter to the French Air Ministry and Aero Club of France. He worked as an illustrator and poster artist, illustrating, among other books, Aviation de France (1945) by the distinguished French flyers René de Narbonne and Robert Gaujour, and supplying the cover designs for the series Air Album, a set of guides for plane identification during the Second World War. Aviation, Vol. 38, 1938. 4 works, gouache on pale blue mid-weight paper (253 x 220 mm). Plane or pilot names inscribed on verso in pencil and numbered as follows: Potez 53 (284), MS 405 (292), D.27/53 (478), and MS 230 (520). Edges toned, two sheets creased along one edge, Morane 405 slightly skinned along left edge, touch of finger soiling, traces of mounting on verso, images bright: in very good condition.