?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
DESIGNER UNKNOWN [SHIKIHAKU-RESUI / WHITENING BEAUTY LIQUID.] Circa 1915. 21x15 inches, 53 1/4x38 cm. Condition B+: creases in margins and image; hinged at top for matting. Paper. An exceptional, early Japanese photomontage poster for a beauty product that will give the user "A face such as this." It is a classic beauty and the beast juxtaposition, in which the text promises to "kill pimples and whiten skin." It also lists other products such as painkillers and cough medicine which can also be acquired at apothecaries. The geisha depicted is Teruha, a woman whose beauty was of such renown that she featured on many different photographic postcards during her day. She had an extraordinary life which took her from Japan to New York and then back to Japan. She gained even further recognition when she cut off one of her fingers after having her heart broken, being referred to afterwards as "the nine-fingered geisha." She ended up as a monk in a monastery outside of Kyoto, where she died at the age of 99. Geishas were often depicted in Japanese advertising posters too, but very rarely in images combining photography and graphics.
![DESIGNER UNKNOWN. [SHIKIHAKU-RESUI / WHITENING BEAUTY LIQUID.] Circa 1915. 21x15 inches, 53x38 cm.](https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/full//074\688074.jpg)
