?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
ALPHONSE MUCHA (1860-1939) OESTERREICH AUF DER WELTAUSSTELLUNG / PARIS 1900. 1900. 38x121/4 inches. Condition A-: creases in image; vertical and horizontal folds. Trimmed. Framed. This is the left side of the poster Mucha designed for the Austrian pavilions at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. The right side depicted architectural renderings of Austria's different buildings at the fair which were drawn by the architect G. Rossman. When the poster originally came out, many collectors cut the piece in half and kept only the sensuous half designed by Mucha. The image is virtually unique among Mucha's work as it doesn't display a woman posing on her own, but a young ephebe unveiling a generously proportioned lady. The image surpasses Mucha's normal, passively evocative images and begins to border on the overtly suggestive and sexual. Contemporary publicity explained the image as "Paris revealing Austria to the world," and it is a marvelous revelation indeed, superbly drawn by Mucha and bathed in a palette of soft, warm earth tones. Rennert/Weill 66 (var.), DFP II 649 (var.).
