This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/28/2023
HELIOT, Claire (1866–1953). CLAIRE HELIOT. Hamburg: Adolph Friedlander, 1902. One-sheet stone lithograph in colors bearing a full-length portrait of the famed circus performer with a full-grown male lion slung over her shoulders, a Union Jack on a wooden flagstaff gripped in the big cat’s mouth. 36 × 26½". Scattered wear to perimeter with short tears and losses expertly repaired. A-. Linen backed. See Exemplars, page 222.
Though Heliot conceived and performed many unusual feats with as many as a dozen trained lions in the center circus ring—including feeding the cats horseflesh from her fingertips at a mock dinner party, this poster depicts what many considered the high point of her turn, the feat of carrying her ten-year-old, 351-pound lion named Sicchi, on her back.