Posters advertising the first-ever public screening of a film, which took place in Paris in 1895, have hardly ever emerged outside France. While one is known in an American collection, the appearance of another at Sotheby’s latest online film posters auction understandably caused some excitement.
Consigned from a private French collection where it was housed for over 40 years, the Cinématographe Lumière poster was described by the auction house as the “ultimate collector’s poster and a true museum piece”.
It was designed by the artist Henri Brispot (1846-1928) for the 20-minute screening by the Lyon-based pioneers of cinema Louis and Auguste Lumière, held in the Salon Indien, the basement room of the Grand Cafe.