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Alphonse Mucha "En l'honneur de Sarah Bernhardt - ses admirateurs et ses amis" Lithograph
$22,500
This elegant lithograph by Alphonse Mucha titled "En l'honneur de Sarah Bernhardt - ses admirateurs et ses amis", was one of the numerous designs executed by Mucha for Sarah Bernhardt. Sarah Bernhardt is portrayed as Melissinde, Princess of the Orient, from Edmond Rostand's play La Princesse Lointaine (The faraway princess). Melissinde wears a diadem of fresh Madonna lilies in her hair, a flower that embodies her chaste yet sensual nature. The poster was originally produced for the banquet organized for Sarah by her friends and admirers in the Grand Hotel in Paris on December 9, 1896. The poster’s success can be gauged by the fact that it was published without text for collectors in Edition d'Art and as a postcard for the department store La Belle Jardiniere.
- Product Details
- Curator's Notes
Item #: ML-20778
Artist: Alphonse Mucha
Country: France
Circa: 1896
Dimensions: 29.75" height, 21.75" width
Materials: Lithograph paper, Giltwood gesso frame
Signed: "Mucha"
Literature: Pictured in Alphonse Mucha: The Complete Posters and Panels, by Jack Rennert and Alain Weill," page 112, cat. 21 var. 1.
A rediscovery of troubadour texts led to the creation of the medieval history major at the Collège de France, and the popularization of novels set in the Middle Ages. Notable troubadours such as Jaufré Rudel developed the love from afar trope in the 12th century. Rudel would compose poems on fin’amour (the end of love), where the poet-lover sings of his love for a geographically inaccessible and indifferent lady. The poet sings of a desire to be captured or to complete a pilgrimage to be closer to his lady.