?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
ALPHONSE MUCHA (1860-1939) SALON DES CENT. Deluxe edition. 1896. 24x16 1/2 inches, 61x42 cm. A. Davy, Paris. Condition A. Hand-signed and numbered 14 by the artist in black ink. Framed. Mucha's poster design for the Salon des Cent was the start of a long collaboration between the artist and La Plume. One year after he created this poster, the magazine dedicated an entire issue to Mucha and gave him a one-man show. While Mucha was working on this poster, Léon Deschamps, La Plume's publisher, went to visit the artist at his studio. Deschamps recalls that the poster design he saw at that time featured "a half-nude woman, her inclined head resting nonchalantly on one hand, her golden hair curling like a halo in rich arabesques - those famous 'macaroni' which tomorrow would be celebrated and copied by all the apes of art - a divine languor lingering over the clean outlines of her face, the whole emanating an indefinable charm." Mucha protested that the poster wasn't finished, but Deschamps self-aggrandizingly insisted "print it as it is and you will produce a masterpiece of the illustrative decorative poster" (La Plume Mucha Special Issue, 1897, p. 4). All of La Plume's Salon des Cent posters were available for sale to the public. Regular copies were generally sold for 2.5 francs, but they also produced some deluxe editions on Japan paper or vellum. In addition to being printed on special paper, these deluxe editions were signed by the artists and numbered (although no print run was ever specified, it is universally believed that the number was 50). This image is number 14 of the deluxe vellum edition. Rennert / Weill 12 (var. 1), Lendl 13, Salon des Cent cover and 19, DFP-II 628, Meisterplakate 161 (var), Wember 605, Maitres pl. 94, Reims 901, Art Nouveau p. 112 (var).
