Gismonda — Alphonse Mucha, 1894

Mucha’s poster for Sarah Bernhardt’s Gismonda — a tall, narrow sheet of Byzantine pattern and a single serene figure. Commissioned in a rush over a Paris holiday, it made Mucha famous within days and set the whole visual language later called Art Nouveau. The elongated format itself was new — a life-size sliver of a woman, printed to be seen at a glance across a boulevard. One rushed job, and a whole style was born.

Maker

Alphonse Mucha

Date

1894

Medium of the original

One-sheet poster

Original held by

Wikimedia Commons

Credit

Wikimedia Commons · via Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Cleared for print

Catalogue number

PA-00865