?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
DESIGNER UNKNOWN
BUFFALO BILL'S WILD WEST. 1885.
28½x42 inches, 72¼x106½ cm. The Forbes Co., Boston. Condition B+: repaired tears at edges, some into image; minor creases and restoration at edges and along vertical and horizontal folds; slight staining in margins; pin holes in corners.
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was so reliant on posters for advertising that they frequently employed multiple printing houses to produce the 50,000 posters that were published each season the show performed (Wojtowicz p. 105). The images from a number of these posters were recycled - printed again with minor variations by different printing houses (Buffalo Bill p. 6). Two other variations of this poster exist, each with the A. Hoen imprint; one features Buffalo Bill himself astride the saddle of the white horse on the right, instead of this unidentified cowboy. It is unclear which of the three came first. "Forbes . . . produced posters and programs for the Buffalo Bill Wild West during its first five years only" (Ibid.). Rare.
