Mothu et Doria | Maitre de L’Affiche: Plate #46

This artwork is from Les Maitres de L’Affiche series; miniature versions of outstanding stone lithograph artworks of the most important advertising posters by the finest artists.

“The theatre goers enjoys the thrill and gets good value for his money, of seeing reproduced on the stage, the strange and rather sinister atmosphere of the underworld and demimonde. Steinlen’s poster for the two singers Mothu and Doria also gives a delicate hint of the social tension of the period. There is still, of course, no social unrest. There appears to be no top or bottom to society but only a coexistence of opposites. But there is nevertheless a slight difference between belonging to the ‘Paris that amuses itself’ and the ‘Paris that works.’ Behind the peremptory ‘A light, if you please, sir,’ there is the haunting memory of the Weavers’ Rebellion in 1844, which was brutally suppressed”(Paris 1900, p.38)

Overshadowed somewhat by his extremely popular designs with cats, this poster demonstrates the true genius of Steinlen’s ability to observe and then communicate with graphic excellence. With the text almost secondary, he is able to convey, with great draftsmanship, a slice of reality on a dark street of Paris in its heyday that one can almost feel. It is safe to say that this more serious side of Steinlen’s poster works, epitomized by this poster, and is rivaled only by Toulouse-Lautrec.