The whole sheet is dressed as a piece of blue-and-white china. The performer was William Ellsworth Robinson, a New York-born magician who took up a Chinese stage persona around 1900, after hearing of a call for a Chinese magician at the Folies Bergère in Paris, and later performed as Chung Ling Soo. He had an engagement at the London Hippodrome in 1905. Horrocks & Co. of Ashton-under-Lyne printed this poster.
On the poster
blue-and-white willow-pattern plate roundels, each holding a halftone portrait of the performer in a different pose, ring a large central medallion on a woven bamboo-mat ground in golden yellow. Inside the medallion a pagoda and landscape frame his likeness in the closely engraved line of Chinese export china. Bold bamboo-style lettering in cadmium red gives the name, with "CHINESE CONJURER" in the same hand across the lower register.
Bamboo-rod pillars border each side. The printer credit at the foot reads: "HORROCKS & CO. LTD. LITHOS ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE."
About this print
A digitally restored reproduction, printed on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art paper with pigment inks.
