Agoust, Henri | The masters of "Restaurant Juggling"

Agoust, Henri

Famille Agoust dans leur grande nouveauté Un Restaurant Parisien! Hamburg: Lith Adolph Friedländer, 1890s (no. 7055)

Color lithograph poster (33 1/4 x 25 3/4 in.; 847 x 655 mm). Laid down on linen. Fold creases, horizontal crease a bit worn with minor chipping and repair, vertical crease with chips at head and foot, a little browning at edges.

The Agoust Family or, perhaps more accurately, the Agoust Troupe, was headed by Henri Agoust. They were most famous for their restaurant juggling routine. "At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, a very popular type of juggling act was done by 'Restaurant Jugglers.' Restaurant jugglers did their act in the setting of a high class restaurant, with both the customers and waiters eventually juggling anything and everything on the stage, including the food, plates, utensils, and even the furniture" (https://www.juggle.org/restaurant-jugglers/).

This somewhat staid poster can actually be compared with an 1898 film of the still-highly entertaining routine (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcf_hkly-zA).