Charles Mazelin was born in Elboeuf, France, in 1882. At the
age of 15 he went to the School of Decorative Arts in Paris, but was not the
most diligent student. But his talent did show through, so he furthered it by
going to the École des Beaux-arts in 1899. He subsequently won the Prix de Rome
in 1906 and in 1908.
During the First World War, Mazelin was mobilised and
wounded in Verdun, but while convalescing he created an album of patriotic etchings
based on the Somme Front theme. After the war, Mazelin started working as a
reproduction engraver, illustrating many books.
It was not until 1939 that Mazelin became involved in the
engraving of stamps, thanks to a bit of coaxing by his friend and fellow
engraver Jules Piel. Not that Mazelin needed a job, but he liked the technical challenge
of engraving on such a small scale. His first stamp was one with a portrait of
the poet Frédéric Mistral. But Mazelin was especially fond of the number of stamps
he engraved showing landscape scenes, as part of various Views and the early
Tourism series.
During the war, Mazelin got the chance to participate in engraving
non-postage labels for souvenir sheets issued during the annual Paris Philatelic
Exhibition. Mazelin features on all three sheets, having engraved labels
depicting the Notre-Dame of Paris, ‘Soirée a l’arsenal’, and a scene from Ravel’s
opera Le Boléro.
Mazelin’s non-stamp but very much philatelic engravings continued
to garner much interest. At the end of the Second World War, France’s definitives
would be engraved and printed in Britain, by De la Rue, on the presumption that
war-torn France would not be able to produce high-quality stamps. To refute
that presumption, those same stamps, in the Marianne de Dulac design, were
produced in France. It was Mazelin who engraved the French version. His version
is easily recognisable because the design lacks any information with regard to country
name or denomination, instead having a purely decorative border. While these
were never ever meant to be issued, they do exist in a large number of colours.
More stamp show work appeared in 1949, when he engraved a
souvenir label depicting a lady with an umbrella looking at Pierre Gandon’s
Marianne. This particular label was part of a publicity campaign celebrating
the centenary of French stamps, a campaign which also saw that same Marianne being
reissued in the national colours. The label was also a delicate pointer towards the friendship between the two engravers, because when Pierre Gandon had been blacklisted for a few months at the end of the war, he nevertheless kept on working, engraving a stamp portraying Sarah Bernhardt. Mazelin then signed the stamp with his name so that it could be issued.
In 1950, Mazelin engraved a stamp portraying Madame
Récamier. It would become the first stamp ever to win the Grand Prix de l’art
philatélique.
Charles Mazelin passed away in 1968.
You will find Charles Mazelin's database HERE.