This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/24/2024
FASOLA, Gustave (Fergus Greenwood, 1870 – 1929). Gustave Fasola The Famous Indian Fakir. [Leeds]: Wal[ter] Mallyon Lith., ca. 1900. Half-sheet stone lithographed portrait poster of the British magician and illusionist in costume, with a bejeweled turban on his head, the likeness positioned at the center of a golden medallion. 29 ¼ x 19 ¾”. Restoration at old folds and tiny chips around the border; A-/B+. Linen backed. RARE; the first example we have encountered.Fasola is credited as the inventor of the Lady to Lion illusion and devised other effects for his own show, as well as that of Howard Thurston. In fact, Fasola built props for many other magicians, having issued a catalog to the trade selling the illusions he’d invented, as well as a line of standard apparatus built by Willmann. He also toured extensively, but never became a star. After years of struggle with only limited triumphs, Fasola died at his own hand on January 12, 1929 in a flat in Brixton.