E. Ayres illustrated for La Gazette du Bon Ton during 1914, working across both the editorial pages and the advertising section. The Rijksmuseum attributes six or more items to Ayres on the basis of a monogram appearing on the works — a small lower-case e.a set into the design. The confirmed body of work falls in three groups. In No. 5, Ayres illustrated the whole of La Palette des Dames, a five-page article by Charles Muller on the history and practice of cosmetics, running from page 153 to 157; the illustrations are vignettes set into the letterpress text rather than full plates — disembodied lips, faces in profile, a powdered face with star and crescent beauty patches, a hand holding a tulip. In No. 6 Ayres supplied two advertisements: one for the cosmetics house Helena Rubinstein on page IX, and one for the upholsterers and decorators Mercier Frères on page XII. In No. 7 the pairing with Charles Muller resumed for Le Jeu des Mots across pages 248 and 249, illustrated with women's hairstyles and hats, and a further piece titled Le Péché d'Envie ou La Panhard Convoitée. The sequence is worth noting for what it shows about the magazine rather than about the artist. Ayres illustrated a feature on cosmetics in May and a cosmetics advertisement in the following issue: the same hand, the same subject, moving from the editorial well to the advertising pages within a month. It is a documented instance of a practice the Gazette followed more generally, its advertisers drawing on the illustrators who gave the editorial pages their authority. Nothing further is recorded. The forename behind the initial, nationality, dates, training and any work outside the Gazette are all unknown, and no illustrator of this name has been identified in the standard reference literature. The Record Institute records the attribution as the Rijksmuseum states it and asserts nothing beyond it.
Nationality: Undocumented
Active period: 1914