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Auction History Result 6a002 BEN-HUR linen 20x30 stage poster 1912 wonderful art of chariot race at climax, ultra rare! Date Sold 4/29/2018 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Linenbacked Stage Play Poster (measures 20" x 30" [51 x 76 cm]) (Learn More) Ben-Hur, a 1899 - 1920 Ben Teal Broadway stage play production (based on the work by Lew Wallace and adapted by William W. Young). Edward J. Morgan portrayed Ben-Hur during the first season (followed by William Farnum), while William S. Hart played Messala. The key spectacle of the show recreated the novel's chariot race with live horses and real chariots running on treadmills against a rotating backdrop (though later productions sometimes used "mechanical" horses). The production opened at the Broadway Theater in New York City on November 29, 1899, and ran for 194 performances in its first season, before closing on May 10, 1900 (and opening again later that year). Ben-Hur became a hit show and ran for eighteen non-consecutive years on Broadway. The play's 21 year national tour included large venues in cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Baltimore. International versions of the show played in London, Sydney and Melbourne. When the play finally closed in 1920, it had been seen by more than twenty million people and earned over $10 million at the box office. If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know. Important Added Info: Note that while this classic novel was first adapted for the stage in New York City in 1899 (see above), and even though there were many, many stage productions of it over the next 22 years, posters from any of those stage productions are extremely rare. Prior to being consigned this wonderful 1912 poster, we had never auctioned even one stage play poster from ANY of the many productions of this play. This poster is surely from 1912, because it is dated. It has printer information from a New York printer, so it is extremely likely it is for the New York production of this play (and Klaw & Erlanger, who are credited at the top of the poster, were the top New York stage producers of this time). The poster has fantastic art of the classic chariot race, and while the poster artist took great liberties in drawing it, one still wonders how in the world they could possibly perform the chariot race on stage in a theater. We found the answer! There is an article on the Internet that shows a picture of the actual stage that was used, and it is amazing what they did. They had the riders with mechanical horses running on a gigantic treadmill in the foreground, and the background was a electric mechanical revolving set that kept moving counterclockwise in a circular fashion, so that the riders kept moving on the treadmill, and the moving background gave the illusion of them moving, when actually they were staying in one place. It must have been amazing to see in person! What IS linenbacking? Learn More Overall Condition and Pre-Restoration Defects with Quality of Restoration: very good. The poster was never folded. It had some areas of paper loss in the top and bottom of the blank borders, with small paper loss scattered down the left blank border. It had a few tears around the edges that extended into the image, and a 5" vertical tear in the lower right of the image, but no paper loss. Overall, the poster was in good to very good condition prior to linenbacking. This rare and historic poster was excellently backed by a top professional, and displays great (and we believe it should be in a museum, or certainly on public display!). Learn More about condition grades 
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