?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 30,000 - $ 40,000
ALPHONSE MUCHA (1860-1939) BIÈRES DE LA MEUSE. 1897. 58x38 3/4 inches, 147x99 cm. F. Champenois, Paris. Condition A-: restoration along vertical and horizontal folds. Colors especially strong and vivid. Matted and framed. This is one of Mucha's most renowned images. The central figure is a sensuous and delectable young daydreamer, whose hair is filled with the hops, barley and malt from which beer is brewed and whose hand absent-mindedly caresses a stein of foamy beer. Her hair flows around her body as freely as the beer overflows the stein and her curls evolve into Mucha's trademark "curvy spaghetti" style. The image is an impeccable melding of art and commerce in which Mucha's promotion for a French brewer's association becomes a gentle, yet compelling Art Nouveau masterpiece. The allegory of the Meuse River, depicted in gray and white at the bottom, appears in several other posters from this era, and was an established trademark of this organization. Even in its own time this poster was considered a classic. In 1899, in an amusing supplement to the Maitres de l'Affiche, Adolf Willette designed an image of a young girl on a country road, kneeling down and praying before this poster, mistaking the beautiful maiden for a saint. Rennert / Weill 27, Litfass 122, Drink 32.
