?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
GEORGE BARBIER (1882-1932) FRENCH EXPOSITION. 1924. 21x13 inches. Geo. P. Thomas, New York. Condition B+: minor losses, tears, creases, abrasions and staining in margins. Printed on thick stock. George Barbier, along with Georges Lepape, was the most important illustrator of the French Mannerist school during the 1920s. He worked for the trendiest and most popular magazines, such as La Gazette du Bon Ton, and illustrated many books. He was also a prolific stage and costume designer, with his works appearing in just about all the performances at the Folies Bergere revues until his death. Such was his fame that Hollywood called on him to design the costumes for the 1924 Rudolph Valentino film Monsieur Beaucaire. As such an international design celebrity, he was chosen to advertise a French exhibition glorifying French fashion and luxury goods in New York. One year before the seminal Art Deco Exhibition in Paris, Barbier's image is replete with many of the design elements that would soon take the world by storm. In this image, Hermes, the God of Trade, is pulling a red carpet under the contents of a horn of plenty being emptied by a stylized Marianne (the symbol of the French Republic). The horn is disgorging everything that Paris was famous for: perfume, jewels, fashion items and even a limousine. This is the only known copy.
