?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,000
HENRI CASSIERS (1858-1944) RED STAR LINE / ANTWERPEN - NEW YORK. 1898. 37x501/2 inches. O. De Rycker, Brussels. Condition B+: restored losses in margins; repaired tears, creases and restoration in image. Throughout his career, Cassiers designed over a dozen posters for this Belgian shipping company, of which this was the first. 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 liner's ships. But after this first image, Cassiers began to use flat colors and only depict ethnic Flemish peasants. For this first poster, Cassiers is still in the thralls of 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, Belle Epoque 11.
