?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
THÉOPHILE-ALEXANDRE STEINLEN (1859-1923) LE PETIT SOU. 1900. 80x39 1/4 inches, 203x100 cm. Charles Verneau, Paris. Condition B+: repaired tears, creases and overpainting in margins and image. Three sheets. Advertising the newspaper "Le Petit Sou" (The Little Penny), with its stated political orientation --"The Journal of Social Defense," Steinlen creates one of the most lyrical, social images ever produced by lithography. The allegorical scene is reminiscent of Eugene Delacroix's famous painting Liberty Leading the People. Here, Liberty is leading workers, young and old alike, towards the Sacre Coeur church, in a symbolic storming of "the new Bastille," where the multitudes are worshipping a golden calf. This is Steinlen's most "openly propagandistic" poster which exemplifies his "vigorous drawing style which in turn captures broader social meanings" (Cate And Gill p. 126). Crauzat p. 137, Bargiel & Zagrodski p. 65, Cate and Gill p. 127 (var).
