?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
ALPHONSE MUCHA (1860-1939) GISMONDA. 1894. 86x291/4 inches. Lemercier, Paris. Condition B: minor loss in image; horizontal folds; creases in image and margins; pinholes in margins; darkened overall; mounted on old linen. Two sheets. The fairy tale circumstances surrounding Mucha's designing Gismonda are well known. On Christmas Eve, 1894, Mucha was working late at the Lemercier printing plant, when a manager for Sarah Bernhardt burst in to complain that the diva was unhappy with the poster design for her latest play, which was slated to open the following week. A tall, thin poster with a pastel palette and ornate decorations, Mucha's design was not only a revolution in the graphic arts world, but the beginning of a long friendship with the actress. Just like Lautrec in 1891 when he designed his La Moulin Rouge, Mucha instantly became the talk of Paris, and set the stage for his most successful years. Less well known is what happened behind the scenes. Bernhardt had paid for 4000 copies of the poster, but she only took 3450 with her for immediate use. The remaining posters were left at Lemercier. When Bernhardt returned to pick up the rest, they had disappeared. Lemercier offered to reimburse her or to reprint the poster, but Bernhardt refused. Then she sued them-and won! The judges citing "that the number had been limited, that they had increased in value and that a new printing would have depreciated them" (l'Estampe et l'Affiche, 1897, p. 207). This story is revealing on several levels: first, that posters were no longer considered only as pieces of advertising, but as actual collectors' items, and secondly we can tell that the few copies of the poster that have surfaced over the past few decades which exist uncut, on one sheet, were from the Lemercier stock that was dispersed behind Bernhardt's back. Rennert/Weill 3, Lendl p. 17, Grand Palais A4.
