Doe and Hope

Description

The large conjuring poster lithographed in colour with three portraits, a large illustration of a levitation act, and four smaller illustrations, printed in Brussels by Affiches Marci with minor defects, generally in excellent condition, backed on linen, framed and glazed.

The illustration, amongst other things, depicts local Belgian and Brussels born conjurer Philippe De Bischop (1880-1960) who performed in Belgium, France and Holland from 1909-1914 as a semi-professional with an oriental number as "Bel-Kassem" and "Kedour". After the Second World War he became a professional magician or ‘illusionist moderne’ and toured through Europe and North Africa with his wife Eliane as "Noran & Ph. de Datura". The artwork is crammed full of illustrations of various acts of levitation and slight of hand with the devil, interlocking rings and loaded dice all appearing.

Masters of design and colour and with a long and intricate history, Marci and Co, founded in 1819, has been printing colour posters since 1882. Perhaps the most famous production of lithographs ended in around 1970 with the widespread use of offset printing, a printing process already in use as early as 1930.

This is a very attractive and desirable antique Marci poster, ready to hang and admire, though if you blink you may well miss it. Poof!