HENRI CASSIERS (1858-1944) RED STAR LINE / ANTWERPEN - NEW YORK. 1898. 36x49 inches, 91 1/2x124 1/2 cm. Rycker, Bruxelles. Condition B+: restoration along vertical and horizontal folds; repaired tears and restoration in margins and image. Matted and framed. Throughout his career, Cassiers designed over a dozen posters for this Belgian shipping company. This was the first, and it was one of the best in the whole series, depicting the Westernland I within an unmistakable Art Nouveau context. Each poster was predicated on the simple idea of people watching one of the lines ships. But after this first image, Cassiers began to use flat colors and to only depict Flemish peasants. For this first poster, Cassiers is still in thralls to traditional Art Nouveau as practiced in the artistic circles of Brussels, exemplified here by the child's hair and the decorative frieze of stars around the typography. The combination of the graphic and the painterly rendering of the sea and the ship create one of Cassiers' most spectacular posters. Belgian 13, Belgique p. 30-31, Cassiers 67, DFP-II 996, Belle Epoque 11, Maitres 1900 p. 98.
