?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
A. M. CASSANDRE (ADOLPHE MOURON, 1901-1968) WAGONS-LITS. 1930. 36 3/4x22 inches, 14 1/2x56 cm. Condition A- / B+: repaired tears at edges; abrasions in image. Matted and framed. For the Wagons-Lits (a railroad sleeping car company), Cassandre chooses an "unquestionably persuasive," (Mouron p. 69), symbolic, and poetic approach. Rather than focusing on the sleeping car, or the internal trappings of night travel by rail, Cassandre depicts the evening outside of the carriage, showing the deep blue sky pierced by an eye-like red signal along the rails. "The breath-takingly simple device of a red light glowing in the foggy darkness of a railroad siding is perfectly consistent with our poetically charged experience of looking out the window of a speeding night express" (ibid). It is an elegant approach for an invitation to travel by night. The poster exists with different text variants, but this one, without the "2eme Classe" overprint, is the rarest. Mouron pl. 24 (var), Suntory p. 78 (var), Reina Sophia p. 170 (var) , Mouron pl. 24, Train 264 (var).
