The Mysterious 10-Foot Tall Rajah Poster

A ten-foot tall poster in today's Rare & Important Art Nouveau Posters auction has attracted the attention of the New York Observer. Henri Privat-Livemont's Rajah is extremely scarce—only one reference to the poster has been found, in the December 1900 issue of The Poster, a turn-of-the-century magazine. And, it has only appeared at auction once in the past 30 years. Nicholas Lowry, poster specialist and President of Swann Galleries, speculates that few copies of the poster survived because of its large format. The unknown subject is described in the Observer as "a beautiful (and quite curvy) woman swathed in a transparent gossamer veil," the epitome of the art nouveau female. 


Henri Privat-Livemont, Rajah, 1900. Estimate: $12,000 to $18,000.

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