Prints & Posters

René Vincent "Porto Ramos-Pinto" Poster, ca. 1920

Appraisal: René Vincent "Porto Ramos-Pinto" Poster, ca. 1920

Transcript

GUEST: I purchased it in 1972 at a flea market in Paris. I worked for Pan Am at the time as a flight attendant, and I would go over about four times a month, and I started collecting the posters. I could, uh, roll them up and carry them on the plane in a tube. They were easy to transport. And on one of the trips, I saw this poster, and it was a lot smaller than the other ones I had been buying. But the dealer assured me that it was a genuine vintage poster. About 15 years ago, I started seeing a lot of these images on posters in stores for, like, $20, and they were really big. And that concerned me.

APPRAISER: And at the flea market, how much did you pay for it?

GUEST: $30. Which at the time, in '72, was a lot.

APPRAISER: It's this wonderfully romantic, Valentine's-y image...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...with little Cupid with his bow holding up a glass of port for these two archly Art Deco lovers, who are, they're trying to kiss, and Cupid's, like, "No, you've got to get drunk first." It's compelling and so well-composed, too, how our, our attention is drawn right to the center of the image. It's a masterpiece of graphic design. It's interesting that you've seen bigger copies.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And you worried that the small one might be a reproduction.

GUEST: Right, or might devaluate it because of that.

APPRAISER: In fact, it's the absolute opposite. The, this was only ever done in a small format, and all of the bigger ones...

GUEST: Mm-hmm. .

APPRAISER: ..are reproductions.

GUEST: Ah-hah.

APPRAISER: And so this is an original.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: It dates to the 1920s.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: It's by René Vincent, who was one of the great Art Deco poster artists of the era. He did a lot of advertisements for Peugeot.