?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
PRIVAT LIVEMONT (1861-1936) CACAO VAN HOUTEN. 1897. 58 1/4x23 3/4 inches, 148x60 cm. Luan Leer, Brussels. Condition B+: restored loss along bottom edge; repaired tears and creases in margins and image. Framed. Although Privat Livemont is often considered Mucha's Belgian alter ego, he was by no means Mucha's disciple. Livemont's first poster dates from 1890, five years before Mucha designed Gismonda. This classic Art Nouveau image is one of Livemont's best designs and was praised as early as 1898 in L'Estampe et l'Affiche: "It's a suave young lady, with a wild head of hair, lifting, in a graceful manner, a cup of steaming cocoa, whose escaping vapors frame this delectable painting. A light and silky garment in yellow, clear and green tints, with here and there some chrysanthemums strewn about as usual, reveals to the spellbound eye the pure lines of a young and graceful body." (p.16). French version. DFP II 1065, Wine Spectator 83, Belle Epoque 93, Chocolate p. 45.
