Oct 27, 2016 - Sale 2427

Sale 2427 - Lot 166

Price Realized: $ 2,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
GRIF TELLER (1899-1993) WASHINGTON / THE CITY BEAUTIFUL / PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD. 1935.
40 1/4x25 inches, 102 1/4x63 1/2 cm. O. Co., Clifton, New Jersey.
Condition A- / B+: expertly-repaired tears, creases and minor restoration in margins; creases along horizontal fold; replaced lower left corner.
A wonderful train image from the years when travelling was an art and the locomotive was a design masterpiece. Here, behind the engine and busy platform, Washington D.C. is indeed a "city beautiful," especially when pictured in a montage of images that place the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the Supreme Court in the same view. "A notable Deco-styled poster selling Washington, D.C. . . . [that] featured the capital's two latest improvements - the new Supreme Court Building [opened in 1935] and [the railroad's] latest streamlined electric locomotive" (Zega p. 109). The train is Raymond Loewy's industrial design marvel, the GG-1 electric engine. Zega fig. 139, Affiches Chemins de Fer p. 99.