Salon of the Hundred / Twentieth Exhibition

Original Language TitleSalon des Cent / XXme Exposition

Artist Alphonse Mucha (Czech, 1860 - 1939)

Printer Imprimerie Champenois (Paris, act. 1859 - 1927)

Date1896

MediumColor lithograph

DimensionsUnframed: 24 3/8 × 16 1/4 inches (61.91 × 41.28 cm)
Framed: 31 1/2 × 23 1/8 × 1 inches (80.01 × 58.74 × 2.54 cm)

Credit LineBequest of Donald D. Jones

Object number2001.3.175

On View

Not on view

Collections

Prints

Terms

Exhibition History

Art of Advertising, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 22–July 17, 2011, no cat.

Mucha’s Muses: Sarah Bernhardt and the Spirit of Art Nouveau, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 31, 2026–January 17, 2027, no cat.

Gallery Label

Alphonse Mucha’s poster advertises an art exhibition at the gallery of La Plume, the noted Parisian art and literary journal. Mucha seizes the viewer’s attention with his image of a woman, whose semi-nude body and mass of disheveled hair partially obscure the text. With eyes closed, chin cupped in her right hand, white sheet covering her lower torso and arm slung around the starred finial of her chair, this beauty strikes a revealing pose. In her left hand, she holds a plume pen and paintbrush, emblems of literature and art. Mucha’s ambition to join artists such as Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, James Ensor and Theophile Steinlen as a member of La Plume’s prestigious Hundred was realized with this poster, which Léon Deschamps, the journal’s publisher, proclaimed “a masterpiece.”

Gallery Label

Alphonse Mucha

Czech, 1860–1939

Printed by Imprimerie Champenois

French, active 1859–1927

Salon of the Hundred / Twentieth Exhibition, 1896

Color lithograph

Bequest of Donald D. Jones, 2001.3.175

Mucha created this work for the Salon des Cent in Paris, the gallery of the avant-garde magazine La Plume. This luminous poster marked his debut with the publication. Featuring a half-draped muse framed by hair in flowing arabesques (ornamental curves), the design exemplifies his style. This work helped solidify Mucha’s fame, leading La Plume to sell his prints and honor him with a solo exhibition the following year.

Provenance

Donald D. Jones (1927–2000), by 2000;

Bequeathed by Jones to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2001.

Published References

Roger Marx, Les Maîtres de l’Affiche 2 (1897): pp. VIII, X, pl. 94, (repro.), as 20^e Exposition du Salon des Cent.

La Plume (July 1, 1897): 403, (repro.).

Ann Bridges, ed., Alphonse Mucha: The Complete Graphic Works (London: Academy Editions, 1980), no. A7, pp. 51, 152, as Salon des Cent: XXme Exposition.

Jack Rennert and Alain Weill, Alphonse Mucha: The Complete Posters and Panels (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984), no. 12, pp. 72–75, as Salon des Cent: XXeme Exposition.

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