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Lot 2
My Girl. 1896.
Sold
$1,680
Est.
$1,400 - $1,700
Live Auction
PAI-LXXX: Rare Posters
Live Bidding began Feb 23, 2020 at 11:00 AM EST
Description
Artist: ALICK P. RITCHIE (1869-1938)
Size: 39 3/4 x 28 3/4 in./101 x 73.2 cm
Condition: B/ Restored tears at folds.
Printer: David Allen & Sons, Manchester
Reference: Ref: PAI-XXXI, 610
Key Words: Art Nouveau; Black Images; Theatre

My Girl. 1896.
Originally titled The Clergyman's Daughter, this musical play was renamed My Girl for its debut at the Gaiety Theatre, presumably to fit in with the theatre's run of "girl" musicals: The Shop Girl, The Circus Girl, A Runaway Girl, etc. The common thread throughout these shows was the Gaiety Girls: fashionable, elegant, polite, and well-behaved dancers who—unlike their corseted burlesque counterparts—were considered to symbolize the ideal of womanhood. That prim-and-proper attitude is made unabashedly clear in Ritchie's design, where a curmudgeonly matron defends herself against a charging Zulu warrior with a lacy parasol. Nothing more is known of the plot, but amusing hijinks certainly ensued.