Dec 15, 2005 - Sale 2062

Sale 2062 - Lot 5

Price Realized: $ 2,070
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,000
JULES CHERET (1836-1932) PASTILLES GERAUDEL. 1890.
321/4x231/4 inches. Chaix, Paris.
Condition B+: restored losses and overpainting in margins and image; vertical and horizontal folds.
Geraudel was a pharmacist who invented a cough drop that went on to become very successful thanks almost entirely to his talent as a marketer, as opposed to the product's medicinal properties. He was both an admirer and a friend of Cheret's, and frequently commissioned him to design posters for his company. Geraudel also helped to support and promote Cheret in another project, as he was the financial investor behind the Courrier Francais, which published small format versions of many of Cheret's posters. In this image, making use of the elongated format he so favored, Cheret depicts one of his Cherettes in a pharmacist's laboratory. Hardly a standard background for a poster, Cheret takes what could be a very banal setting and electrifies the image through the shapely black scarf the woman is wearing which literally becomes the backbone of the poster. Broido 893, DFP II 207, Maindron 737.