?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
ALPHONSE MUCHA (1860-1939)
L'AIGLON / SARAH BERNHARDT. 1900.
30 1/2x78 inches, 77 1/2x198 cm. Champenois, Paris. Condition B: replaced losses, repaired pin holes, repaired tears, small losses, creases, abrasions and overpainting in margins and image; stamp in right image. Two-sheets.
In 1900, Mucha's work on projects for the Exposition Universelle in Paris, would certainly have taken up much of his time. Yet he owed so much of his success to Sarah Bernhardt that it would have been nearly impossible for him to turn down a commission from the great actress. In this play, written by her favorite author Edmond Rostand, Bernhardt once again played the role of a man: Napoleon's only son. The play was a great success, but for the first time in his career, it seems Mucha was unable to produce a poster equal to the actress's great talents. Jiri Mucha (the artist's son) actually doubts whether the work is his father's despite the obvious signature beneath the portrait. It seems clear, judging by the delicate and elegant portrait of L'Aiglon (The Eaglet), featuring excellently rendered hair, hands and face, that Mucha drew the image. And yet "the poster does not have the feel of a Mucha work - the craftsmanship, the attention to details, the flawless execution" (Rennert / Weill p. 394), making us think that Mucha did the drawing and then left the printing and final execution to someone else. This was Mucha's last collaboration with Sarah Bernhardt. Rennert / Weill A 10.
