Amazing Art Nouveau Animal designs, Maurice Pillard Verneuil Prints

These beautiful art nouveau animal designs are from the book “L’animal dans la Décoration” by Maurice Pillard Verneuil. The book was published in 1897.

Maurice Pillard Verneuil was a French artist and interior designer predominantly associated with the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements. There is a collection of his art nouveau flower prints and designs on Pictureboxblue.

The collection here is the Maurice Pillard Verneuil designs and patterns inspired by the animal kingdom. These art nouveau prints celebrate the wide variety of designs in nature. They are heavily influenced by plant and animal forms such as birds, fish, insects, flowers, trees and other living creatures.

By closely studying these natural forms, Verneuil created a wonderful collection of colourful and striking decorative prints. These were primarily designed to be used by interior designers, to be used for wallpaper, textiles, ironwork, painted borders and friezes, like those of William Morris.

Maurice Pillard Verneuil

Verneuil was born in France in 1869. But after the first world war, he moved to Switzerland until he died in 1942. Before he became a well-known designer, he studied his craft with the Swiss designer Eugène Grasset.

Grasset was a Swiss designer considered a pioneer in Art Nouveau design. Art Nouveau design started in the 1890s and was widely used in interior design, graphic arts, furniture, glass art, textiles, ceramics, jewellery and metalwork. 

This artistic movement was superseded by Art Deco design in the 1920s. Verneuil also contributed greatly to this artistic mode later on in his career.

Inspired by Japanese art and nature, particularly the sea, Verneuil loved colourful, bold geometric patterns, a strong theme throughout his designs.

How To Download the Maurice Pillard Verneuil Prints

All the prints in this collection are in the Public Domain, and you can print and use them as you wish. From the New York Public Library and Rawpixel.

To download a design, click on the title above the designs you want. A higher-resolution image will open as a new window in your browser. If you click on that image with your mouse, the menu option to save that image to your device will appear.

They can either be printed at home or uploaded the file to an online print shop. Unless you have an exceptionally excellent home printer, I recommend getting the prints done professionally. Online printing is very affordable; choose a high-quality paper option for your images.

These patterns are great designs for crafting, scrapbooking and decoupage.

The Art Nouveau Animal Designs

1. Fish, Seaweed and Peacocks

Fish and seaweed, rooster, spandrel; peacocks and vines; hares, dogs and brambles in border from design.

2. Pigeon and Poppies Stained Glass

The art nouveau animal designs in this plate are, fish and seaweed, wallpaper; pigeon and poppies, stained glass border.

3. Frogs and Lilies

Frogs and water lilies, border; dragonflies, stencil; flying fish, dragonflies, borders.

4. Swans and Mushrooms

Mushrooms and butterflies, border; swans, irises and water lilies. An Art Nouveau animal design for cloisonné enamel.

5. Art Nouveau Animal Design Red Mullet

6. Snails Border

Snails, border, dragonfly and reeds, wallpaper and seagulls.

7. Maurice Pillard Verneuil Print Butterflies

Butterflies are a very common theme in Art Nouveau designs.

8. Eagle and Macaw

Eagle and oak, macaws and corn, borders. Fish and birds, frieze.

9. Swans and Deer

Swans border. Butterflies and foliage, fabric. Deer and hinds, frieze from L’animal dans la Décoration (1897) illustrated by Maurice Pillard Verneuil.

10. Fishes and Cockatoos

Fishes, stencilled frieze. Cockatoos and lemons.

Sulphur crested cockatoos are one of my favourite animals and I will be adding this print to my collection of cockatoos.

11. Jellyfish and Seaweed

An art nouveau animal design of jellyfish and seaweed, stained glass. Cicadas and lilies, peacocks and laburnum, borders.

The illustrations of the zoologist Ernst Haeckel influenced the art nouveau movement. If you check out Haeckel’s jellyfish paintings, you can see why.

12. Peacocks in Rowan Trees

Peacocks in rowan trees, stencil; fish and seaweed, border from L’ animal dans la Décoration (1897) illustrated by Maurice Pillard Verneuil.

13. Squirrels

Swifts and honeysuckle, border. Squirrels and hazel, wallpaper. Birds and hazelnut in bloom, border.

14. Cicadas and Thistles

Crows, stenciled border; cicadas and thistles.

15. Kingfishes

Kingfishers, dragonflies and flowerhead in umbrellas, borders; butterflies, fabric.

16. Eagles and Oak

Eagles and oak, wallpaper. Antelopes, tigers, cacti and palm trees.

17. Birds and Wisteria

Birds and wisteria, wall hanging. Lizards and ivy, border.

18. Butterflies and Grasshoppers

Butterflies and poppies, translucent enamel night light. Peacocks, cloisonné enamel vase. Birds wall hanging. Capricorns, bottom game. Grasshoppers, border.

19. Fly Birds and Orchids

Dragonflies, flower bud, water lilies, panel. Fly birds and orchids, fabric. Birds border.

20. Cockatoo and Dogs

Cockatoo, border. Dogs, deer and wild boar, embossed and gilded leather.

21. Bats

Bats and poppies, wall hanging. Butterflies and bellflowers, wallpaper.

22. Cockatoos and Magnolia

Cockatoos and magnolia, border. White mice.

23. Golden Pheasant

Birds, background game. Snails and mushroom. Ladybugs fabric. Golden pheasant and iris, border.

24. Deer and Trees

Art nouveau design pattern of deer and trees, wallpaper. Squirrel birds and rowan, border.

25. Kingfishes and Horses

Art nouveau animal design patterns of kingfishers and flowering rush, wallpaper. Horses and trees, border.

26. Doves

Doves and lilies, printed art nouveau fabric design.

27. Flying fish and waves

Flying fish and waves, wallpaper. Cicadas and pine, wallpaper. Nautilus shells, border.

28. Clouds and Eagles

Clouds eagles and pigeons, wallpaper. Seashells and seaweed border.

29. Gurnard

Art nouveau animal designs of peacocks and poppies, border. Gurnard, seaweed and shells, cloisonné enamel dish.

30. Woodpeckers

Woodpeckers and tree, vertical border. Rabbits and leaves, border. Jellyfish, sea anemones and algae, mud. Insects, background.

31. Pheasants and Foxes

An art nouveau animal design is described as, ordinary pheasants, foxgloves, ferns and dandelions for printed fabric. The border is a fox, birds and vine pattern.

Other Pattern Collections

If you liked these Art Nouveau patterns, then don’t forget to check out the stunning ones of Kolomon Moser on the site.

The Arts and Crafts movement proceeded Art Nouveau, and Martin Gerlach’s vintage plant art from that time had similar plant patterns with animals.

If you enjoyed these gorgeous colourful art nouveau design prints, don’t forget to check out the many other art and design collections on Pictureboxblue, including the Alphonse Mucha advertisement posters. Especially these Art Nouveau pochoir butterfly prints and Seguy’s insects.

Verneuil was greatly influenced by Japanese art and design, so you might want to check out the Japanese vintage collection on Pictureboxblue. And the Chinoiserie interior prints from Brighton Pavilion.

• Watanabe Seitei Japanese Prints
• Vintage color and pattern charts
• Polychrome Ornaments by Albert Racinet
• Ernst Haeckel Prints