?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
AUGUSTE VIOLLIER (1845-1908) APPENZELL / SCHWEIZ. 1904. 45x33 inches, 114 1/4x83 3/4 cm. Walter Marty & Co., Herisau. Condition B+: tears and repaired tears at edges; creases and abrasions in margins and image; overpainting in image; horizontal fold; tape on verso. Paper. In 1898, Switzerland's five large private railroad companies were nationalized to form the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB in German, CFF in French and FFS in Italian). In 1903, the new company held a poster contest, open only to Swiss artists, asking for a landscape with no requirements for the appearance of trains, bridges or even overt commercial advertising. Viollier, who had already designed a number of posters under the pseudonym Godefroy, was one of the four winners. The winning posters were "realized by painters who express their work through the attachment with their homeland, of which they want to show the essence. The spirit of these posters is completely different from that of previous ones. They celebrate their country through dense, colored, expressive images" (Paradis p. 122). This is the German version. Paradis p. 122 (var).
