This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/26/2022
LeRoy, Servais (Jean Henri Servais LeRoy). “Rostrum” The Last Word in Magic. New York, Chicago and St. Louis: National Printing and Engraving, ca. 1920. Color lithograph depicts the famed Belgian magician presenting his most famous illusion, better known as the Asrah levitation. A spectral form floats over the heads of an amazed audience gazing up at it, while the magician gestures toward the body from the stage. Framed to 31 x 43 ½”. A few spots of restoration visible, but not examined out of frame. Rare. LeRoy’s Asrah was a giant step forward for an illusion that already captured the public’s imagination. The illusion debuted at the Empire Theater in Johannesburg, South Africa. LeRoy first called the illusion the Mystery of Lhassa, and developed it based on a chance remark made by Leon Bosco, the comedy magician who worked with LeRoy and Talma. As the story goes, LeRoy was unenthusiastic about the illusion, so much so that he had Bosco waiting in the wings with a tray of crockery – prepared to rush on stage and drop it in a comedic manner -- should the effect fall flat. In performance, a hypnotized lady laying on a couch was covered with a sheet. She then mysteriously rose in the air, almost out of reach of LeRoy. Grasping the sheet with the tips of his fingers, LeRoy then whisked it away. The floating woman had vanished, as Howard Thurston would later put it, “like a fading cloud.” The only thing that fell upon LeRoy’s performance of the illusion were the jaws of the spectators, who witnessed a near-miracle. So popular was the illusion that it quickly became a standard in the shows of many notable performers, just as it does today.