This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/29/2022
HERRMANN, ALEXANDER. A. HERRMANN’S LATEST EUROPEAN SENSATION. LE COCON. Boston: Forbes Co., ca. 1890. Three-sheet color lithograph depicting Adelaide Herrmann dressed in a butterfly costume and emerging from a cocoon in her husband’s rendition of the Buatier de Kolta-invented stage illusion. 80 x 40”. Chipped, worn, and mounted to board. Sold as-is. The only known example of this poster. Buatier de Kolta patented his Cocoon illusion while performing at London's famed Egyptian Hall in 1886. The effect would first be performed there in the following year. According to Sidney Clarke, writing in The Annals of Conjuring, “Very shortly described, the effect of the novelty was that the performer suspended a sheet of tissue paper — stretched over a frail frame, in shape something like the rim of a large cardboard box — from a ribbon which crossed the stage. On the paper, he painted a rough sketch of a silkworm. The paper burst, displaying a large cocoon of golden silk. A stool was placed beneath this, onto which it was lowered, and as soon as it touched the stool, it opened and out stepped Madame de Kolta, dressed as a butterfly.” This poster advertises Alexander Herrmann's presentation of the illusion. Herrmann — likely without permission — made features out of many of de Kolta's greatest feats.