Sarah Bernhardt / La Plume 1896

Alphonse Mucha's Sarah Bernhardt / La Plume of 1896 is a poster steeped in celebration, a hand-coloured tribute to the woman who made him famous.

This particular impression is a hand-coloured proof from the Champenois archives, produced to mark Bernhardt's 1896 banquet at the Grand Hotel in Paris, where friends and admirers gathered to fete the legendary actress. Mucha portrays her as Melisande from Edmond Rostand's La Princesse Lointaine, crowned with an ornate tiara of his own design and threaded with delicate white lilies. The decorative refinement and floral symbolism conjure the ethereal, unreachable princess of the play while dwelling lovingly on the beauty of Bernhardt's face. So beloved was the image that it travelled far beyond its original occasion, resurfacing in fine-art editions and as postcards for the department store La Belle Jardiniere, testament to how completely the public took the image to heart.

Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), the Czech master of Art Nouveau, defined the Belle Epoque poster with his halo-like arcs, tumbling hair and radiant female figures wrapped in botanical ornament. His style proved so contagious that it was known simply as 'le style Mucha', and his images remain among the most reproduced in the history of decorative art. His name and Bernhardt's are permanently entwined, their collaboration one of the most fruitful in the history of graphic art.

Art Nouveau swept across Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, casting off academic convention for sinuous 'whiplash' lines, plant-derived ornament and idealised figures. It was the movement that first made the poster genuine art and turned the Paris boulevard into an open-air gallery.

Luminous and lily-strewn, this print brings grace to a bedroom, dressing room, hallway or sitting room. Its soft palette flatters above a vanity or console, and it forms a jewel-like centre for a gallery wall of Mucha and Belle Epoque portraits. The tiara and cascading lilies reward close viewing, while the warm, hand-tinted colouring gives the whole a keepsake intimacy larger prints rarely achieve.

Printed to order on premium 189 gsm museum-grade archival matte paper with fade-resistant pigment inks for rich, gallery-quality colour and crisp detail. Choose your size from the drop-down menu - 8x12, 12x18, 16x24, 20x30 or 24x36 inches. Carefully packaged and shipped rolled in a sturdy tube, or flat in the smallest size; frame not included.

This is a faithful fine-art reproduction of the original stone lithograph, colour-matched and printed to archival standards rather than a flat mass-market copy. It preserves the texture and character of the antique poster while arriving crisp, clean and ready to frame.

A graceful gift for anyone enchanted by Mucha, Sarah Bernhardt or the Belle Epoque - and a lasting way to bring exquisite Art Nouveau portraiture into a home, studio or workplace. Reproduced from a high-resolution scan of the original lithograph; subtle age-toning is part of its authentic historic character.