Auction Closed
October 28, 08:54 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Downs, Thomas Nelson
T. Nelson Downs. King of Koins. The World's Unequalled Palmist and Prestidigitateur. Introducing Only Original & Sensational Coin Manipulations & Comic Conjuring Creations Unassisted by Magicians Apparatus. Chicago: Carqueville Litho. Co., ca. 1900 (no. 2369)
Color lithograph poster (41 x 27 in.; 1042 x 688 mm). Single light horizontal fold crease, some light marginal dust-soiling, small surface abrasion in upper left margin. Framed and glazed with Plexiglas.
A beautiful emblematic poster: beneath a romantic Edwardian portrait of Downs, the King of Koins is pictured performing five manipulations, including palming and juggling thirty-eight half dollars, catching coins from the air, and passing a coin through his knee. The bottom of the poster features a large facsimile inscription by Downs. Illusions calls this image "scarce" and among "the most sought-after magic posters" (p. 12).
Entirely self-trained, Downs became a huge vaudeville and music-hall star, "the first of the great manipulative magicians and probably the greatest of them all" (David Price, Magic: A Pictorial History of Conjurers in the Theater, 1985, p. 177).
REFERENCE:
Illusions 7; Magic, p. 24
