Original Niagara Fliess
Tightrope Walker Poster
circa 1895
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Item Details:
ORIGINAL NIAGARA FLIESS
TIGHTROPE WALKER POSTER
LA BELLE ÉPOQUE, circa 1895
Original Period Lithograph
Edition: Unknown
Publisher: Unknown
Stone Lithograph
Size:
Signed: unsigned
Tightrope walking across the Niagara gorge has been popular with daredevils since the 1800s, although less than a dozen people have actually made the death-defying successful trek across the turbulent treacherous ravine. Called “funambulists”, these tightrope walkers have used many gimmicks to cross the wires, including stilts, bicycles, walking backwards, and carrying others, including the present work depicting a fireworks-carrying amor-suited knight whose helmet and obscured view adds to the spectacle and the perceived danger in the minds of his audience who came to gasp, clutch their companion, shield their eyes, anxiously look on in horror and faint, then loudly cheer at the walker’s triumphant return. The poster’s inset portrait resembles known photographs of Charles Blodin, first tightrope walker to cross Niagara Falls. History’s most famous tightrope walker (or “ropedancer” in 19th century parlance) performed without the luxury of such assurances. During the winter of 1858, a 34-year-old French acrobat named Jean François Gravelet, better known as Monsieur Charles Blondin, traveled to Niagara Falls hoping to become the first person to cross the “boiling cataract.”. Blondin also understood the appeal of the morbid to the masses, and reveled when gamblers began to take bets on whether he would plunge to a watery death. (Most of the smart money said yes.) During his lifetime, Blondin's name became so synonymous with tightrope walking that many employed the name "Blondin" to describe others in the sport. During his lifetime, Blondin's name became so synonymous with tightrope walking that many employed the name "Blondin" to describe others in the sport. In the run-up to the 1864 United States presidential election, Abraham Lincoln compared himself to "Blondin on the tightrope, with all that was valuable to America in the wheelbarrow he was pushing before him.
Subject: Niagara Falls Tightrope Walkers
Creation Year: circa 1895
Dimensions:
Medium: Stone Lithograph
Movement/Style: La Belle Époque
Period: 1871-1914
Condition: Very Good