Aug 01, 2018 - Sale 2484

Sale 2484 - Lot 219

Price Realized: $ 6,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
ALPHONSE MUCHA (1860-1939) MUCHA EXHIBITION / BROOKLYN MUSEUM. 1920.
19 1/4x12 1/4 inches, 49x31 cm.
Condition B+ / B: extensive expert overpainting in background; faded colors enhanced; small expertly-repaired tears in image; restoration along horizontal creases in image.
Alphonse Mucha began working on his magnum opus, The Slav Epic in 1909. By 1920, he had only five of the twenty large canvases finished, and these were put on display in the foyer of the Brooklyn Museum that year. To advertise the exhibition, Mucha designed this poster, depicting "a girl with Slavic features holding a crown of thorns, representing the centuries of suffering under tyrannies. The swirls and eddies of her Mucha-hair dominate the rest of the design" (Rennert / Weill p. 352). rare. We could find only one other copy at auction. Rennert / Weill 105, Lendl p. 285.