?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
EUGÈNE GRASSET (1841-1917) LIBRAIRIE ROMANTIQUE. 1887. 51 1/8x34 1/2 inches. J. Bognard, Paris. Condition B+: restored loss in top margin; unobtrusive vertical and horizontal folds; crease through lower left corner; minor wrinkles at edges. Matted and framed. This was the second poster Grasset designed. Advertising a series of books on the history of romanticism, the image itself is an homage to Gothic romance. The young woman, clad in old-fashioned vestments from the 1830s, is sitting on a pile of old books, a skull at her feet, absorbed in her reading. In the background, the gothic façade of Notre Dame (perhaps a tribute to Victor Hugo) glows in the twilight. "This gentle and delightful work is singled out by Maindron for special praise, as one of the four best posters of the period . . . [and] in the exhibition at the Salon des Cent, it was generally considered to be Grasset's masterpiece" (Abdy p. 124). The blank text box would have been filled with the particulars of the latest publication. Arwas p. 32, Anne Murray Robertson p. 106, Abdy p.125, Wember 371, Wine Spectator 31, Gold 84, DFP-II 398, Maindron p. 129, Maitres pl. 42.
