?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 20,000
TOSCA. 1899. 1181/4x55 inches. G. Ricordi, Milan. Condition B+: overpainting, restoration and creases along vertical and horizontal folds; repaired tears in margins. Two sheets. Hohenstein also accepted commissions for more enduring operas, such as Puccini's eternal masterpiece, Tosca, which is based on the play written by Victorien Sardou for Sarah Bernhardt, who originally performed it in 1897. Mucha designed a poster (La Tosca, 1897) for that production. Hohenstein's design is better than Mucha's, whose poster is not especially inspired, with the majority of his efforts put into the rendering of Bernhardt's sumptuous costume, and the intricate, byzantine, background border. Hohenstein, by comparison, puts us in the center of the drama, in the second act, when Tosca kills Scarpia, the corrupt police chief. He has arrested her lover and is trying to extract sexual favors to secure his release. The dramatic view is from above, exagerating the shadow of her gown with a brilliant use of shadows and light. The colors, from pale yellow to brown, with red in the center of the scene, add to the striking, tragic intensity of the image. One of the best opera posters, and best Art Nouveau posters ever produced. Extremely rare. Maitres 1900 p. 124, Weill p. 84 no. 136, Menegazzi p. 74 no. 79, Manifesti p. 31.
