Dec 19, 2007 - Sale 2133

Sale 2133 - Lot 7

Price Realized: $ 2,880
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
JULES CHERET (1836-1932) MOULIN ROUGE / PARIS CAN CAN. 1890.
31 x 23 inches. Chaix, Paris.
Condition B+: restoration in corners; repaired tears in corners and at edges; minor foxing in margins. Japan.
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 at the time, it was a revolution. Over the next thirty years Cheret perfected the technique of mixing colors, and simplifying his layouts. He also mastered depicting beautiful, carefree, irresistible and jubilant women, which he did in most of his posters. Cheret designed the poster advertising the opening of the Moulin Rouge in 1889. For this image, a year later, he takes a different approach than he normally does to advertising. He presents a close-up of one of the dancing girls in the show, with small vignettes of the other "celebrity" dancers. The poster heralds the legendary Can Can, one of the dances most often associated with fin-de-siecle Paris. Broido 312, DFP II 187, Maindron 254.