11: ALPHONSE MUCHA 1908 LIFE-SIZED POSTER FOR LESLIE CARTER

Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860-1939)
(1908)
The life-sized lithograph poster printed in America for the promotion of Mrs. Leslie Carter as lead actress in the play Kassa, signed in the plate and dated 1908, published by The Strobridge Litho Company, Cincinnati and New York, the six-color stone lithography enhanced with metallic gold highlights, posters of this monumental size required printing on two joined sheets of standard poster paper.
The actress Caroline Louise Dudley, oft referred to as the American Sarah Bernhardt, used her married name of Mrs. Leslie Carter as her stage name in spite following her divorce from Chicago millionaire Leslie Carter.
Mucha designed the sets, costumes and publicity for Kassa in the Art Nouveau taste. This life-sized poster for the New York release is the largest of Mucha's American posters.
The full sheet complete with margins, sheet width 32.125 inches. Frame measures 89.5 x 37 inches.
Outstanding color and cleanliness, backed with archival paper, minor edge tears, a visible horizontal fold line the full width of the image just above the joint and with touched-up color along that line, a second less pronounced horizontal fold line just below the joint, less touch-up if any, otherwise fine to very good without additional issues beyond a small handful of tiny points of foxing.
Provenance: The Estate of Robert Allan Haas, exhibited Hallmark Exhibition - 2005.
$10,000 - $15,000