?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
JULES CHERET (1836-1932) BAL VALENTINO. Circa 1870 483/4x353/4 inches. J. Cheret, Paris. Condition B+: restored losses and repaired tears in margins and image; vertical and horizontal folds. Cheret is unanimously considered to be the father of the poster. His first recorded attempt at poster art was in 1858 for Offenbach's Orfée aux Enfers. By present day standards the result was a dark, messy poster with clumsy color usage, but in its day it was a revolution. Over the next thirty years Cheret perfected the technique of mixing colors, and simplifying his layouts. He also may be the first artist to ever use sex to sell products; in most of his posters he would depict beautiful, care-free, irresistible and jubilant women. They became so popular with the French public, that they were referred to as Chérettes. This is one Cheret's earliest posters, and one of the first that was more than just an accumulation of over-crowded vignettes and images. Cheret must have drawn at least two sets of lithographic stones for this poster as several variants are known to exist. The Dutailly collection at Chaumont has four different variants, the most elegant of which is the same image offered here. Sagot in his Catalogue d'Affiches Illustres offered two variants of the poster (items 894 and 895) at 20 francs each. This was the highest price for any Cheret in his catalogue, already indicating that this image was a rare and mythical piece. The movement in the image, one of Cheret's graphic secrets, is already perfectly handled and it is complemented by the brilliant free-hand drawing. The enormous typography is organized around the outside of the image so as not to dilute the scene. This extremely rare Cheret has not been seen at auction in the last 30 years. Broido 324, Maindron p. 82, Reims 538.
