Jul 16, 2020 - Sale 2541

Sale 2541 - Lot 98

Unsold
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(ADVERTISING.) GOTTFRIED SIEBEN.
Triumphant Sole Sisters. Advertisement for unknown shoe company, before 1918. Grisaille watercolor on paper heightened in white. 517x330 mm; 20 1/4x12 3/4 inches, on 21 3/4x14 1/2-inch sheet. Signed "Sieben" in lower right image. Taped to window matte.

Gottfried Sieben was the pseudonym of Archibald Smith, Austrian journalist, painter, and illustrator of mainstream and erotic subjects. Throughout the 1880s and 90s, he drew for the satirical weekly Der Floh, among other Viennese papers including Wiener Tageblatt, the Elegante Welt and Tritsch-Tratsch. This fun and bizarre shoe ad is characteristic of his often surreal and fantastical compositions where elements would reach out beyond a painted frame or border.