Mistinguett poster is star of Surrey sale
She was born Jeanne Bourgeois in 1875 and worked as a flower seller in a restaurant, singing as she moved between the tables. But as Mistinguett and following appearances at the Casino de Paris, the Folies Bergère and the Moulin Rouge, she become the most popular French entertainer and the highest paid female entertainer of her time in the world.
What helped spread her fame were the often risqué, but always beautifully drawn, posters by Charles Gesmar (1900-1928). Mistinguett was in her forties and the School of Applied Arts pupil Gesmar was just 16 when he started drawing her. He called her “Mama” and after her long and torrid affair with Maurice Chevalier, she was quoted as saying she would “stay with Gesmar”.
His ability to portray the actress’s love of feathers, silks and colourful costumes became legendary and he subsequently designed all the costumes for Mistinguett’s tour of the United States in 1923. The following year Gesmar designed costumes and scenery for the newly reopened Moulin Rouge and fame followed.
Orders for his posters, programme covers, costumes and set designs poured in from theatres in Berlin and Vienna and with it came more money than he knew how to handle. He is said to have paid taxi drivers with hundred franc notes and also acquired a taste for opium. He died tragically young from pneumonia at the age of 27, by which time his posters were on billboards and theatre walls across Europe.
This example is an undoubted star of a sale of fine art and antiques at Surrey’s premier auction house Ewbank Clarke Gammon Wellers on Wednesday March 17. From a private house in a Surrey village whose owners are downsizing, the poster is expected to sell for around £1,000. For further information, please contact the auctioneers on 01483 223101.