Magic Posters Mystify Readers at LiveAuctionTalk.com
Magic Posters Mystify Readers at LiveAuctionTalk.com
It was the greatest trunk mystery the world had ever seen. That’s what the advertising handbill called it.
“The Houdini’s Original Introducers of Metamorphosis. Exchanging Places in 3 Seconds,” the poster said.
At the top Harry Houdini’s vignette could be seen with the words “Harry the King of Handcuffs” underneath. In the bottom right was a vignette of his assistant and wife Bess and the words “Beatrice Queen of Mystery.”
Harry Houdini, the muse of magic, had done it once again. His new trick mystified the world.
Metamorphosis was its name.
Onstage Houdini climbed into a sack that was placed inside a large wooden traveler’s trunk. Audience members tied Houdini’s hands behind his back as he crouched inside close to the row of air holes along the bottom.
The sack was shut and tied securely with ropes. Finally, the lid to the trunk was also closed along with the stage curtain.
“Now then, I shall clap my hands three times and at the third and last time I ask you to watch closely for the effect,” Bess said.
She quickly closed the curtain and vanished from sight. Instantly the curtain was reopened not by Bess but by Houdini himself.
But Bess was now gone.
Houdini turned toward the trunk. He reopened the lid and inside knelt Bess with her hands tied behind her back.
The switch was made. But how?
What the audience didn’t know and couldn’t see was the secret panel. The trunk might be locked but Houdini could escape from inside by pulling open the panel.
His hands were also tied in a way he could easily free himself. Then he opened the bottom of the sack with a knife and exited through the trunk’s secret panel.
Bess quickly took his place inside the trunk which was also quickly unlocked. By the time the trunk was reopened, Bess was already inside the sack.
How did the Houdini’s make the shift in three seconds?
Bess, at barely five-feet-tall was waiflike and fast. Plus, Houdini had been performing magic since his teens and learned the one supreme secret of the art.
He knew how to misdirect audience attention.
In most of his press and advertising he talked about a “secret.” Not a bag of magicians’ tricks but a very mysterious “secret” by which he worked his wonders. It was the most artistic type of misdirection.
If Houdini suspected audiences were figuring out his tricks, he also changed his technique. The Houdini’s took their show on the road to beer halls and dime museums and wowed vaudeville audiences worldwide.
Just seeing a Houdini advertising poster in 1895 was often enough to coax people to buy a ticket to the show. These posters were the mainstay of promotion at the turn-of-the-century.
Never meant to be saved, most of them disappeared. Nowadays they’re highly collectible.
On Oct. 25, Swann Galleries, New York, featured the poster described in The Christian Fechner Collection of American & European Magic, Part III. The 28 by 20 ¾ inch poster sold for $60,000. This was the third annual sale from this important collection.
Here are current values for other Houdini items sold in the auction.
Houdini
Photographic Portrait; manacled Houdini being restrained by French policemen; circa 1905; 5 inches by 7 inches; $2,160.
Pitch Book; “The Adventurous Life of a versatile Artiste”; illustrated; 32 pages; signed bust portrait of Houdini; circa 1910; $3,840.
Photogravure portrait; Houdini holding a copy of his book “The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin; printed signature beneath portrait; circa 1908; 10 inches by 7 inches; $4,800.
Lithographed Poster; Harry Houdini, King of Cards; linen-backed; with a signed note in the margin by Houdini’s brother Hardeen, Chicago 1938; 27 ¾ inches by 20 ¾ inches; $13,200.
Rosemary McKittrick covers the auction market in her weekly art, antique and collectibles column.
Read the entire article at www.LiveAuctionTalk.com.
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