DESIGNER UNKNOWN CUNARD LINE / MONARCHS OF THE SEA / "LUSITANIA" / "MAURETANIA." Circa 1907.
39 1/2x24 3/4 inches, 100x63 cm. Turner & Dunnett, Liverpool.
Condition B: tears and minor losses at edges; creases, wrinkles and abrasions in margins and image.
The construction of the Lusitania and her sister ship the Mauretania was a project largely financed by the British government. The fast, beautiful liners were conceived as a method by which Britain could regain physical and psychological control of the world's oceans. This control had been lost to the Germans in 1897 when the German ship, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, broke the Atlantic speed-crossing record. So closely was British identity tied towards maritime supremacy, that the construction of faster ships became a national obsession. When the Lusitania was launched in 1906, she was the largest ship in the world. She reclaimed the Blue Riband for Britain on her second Atlantic crossing in October 1907. The tag-line, "Monarchs of the Sea," likely plays to the British psyche of dominating the oceans. Turner & Dunnett printed many posters for the Cunard Line, a few for the Elder Dempster Line and some WWI propaganda as well. Almost all of their posters were designed by Odin Rosenvinge, suggesting that he might be the artist of this image. Other versions of this poster with slightly different statistics for the ships exist. This is the first time this extremely rare poster has come up for auction.