Le Roy, Servais | "We Originate  Not Imitate"

Le Roy, Servais 

Le Roy * Talma * Bosco. The Great Decapitation Mystery. Servais Le Roy, World's Monarch of Magic. Hamburg: Lith Adolph Friedländer, ca. 1907 (no. 4230) — Servais Le Roy Co. 52 Hatton Garden London. New Illusions Original Secrets. Le Roy * Talma * Bosco. Hamburg: Lith Adolph Friedländer, ca. 1910 (no. 5046)

2 color lithograph posters (27 7/8 x 19 in.; 710 x 482 mm & a bit smaller). Decapitation with fold creases, a few repaired tears, and some light surface soiling; New Illusions with fold and a few other creases, a couple of tiny surface abrasions with recoloring, and a few marginal tears, one at upper right corner longer and rather clumsily repaired. Each laid down on linen.

While all three members of the troupe sometimes known as Comedians de Mephisto are billed on both of these vivid posters, their spotlight is squarely on Servais Le Roy, the ingenious Belgian innovator and undoubted leader of the trio. In the Decapitation poster, "Le Roy is triumphant. Bosco looks comically shocked, and the Devil has been defeated" (Magic, p. 79). The second poster promotes not the performer, but Le Roy's London magic shop, showing formally attired magicians from around the world reaching for the crate of effects just beyond their grasp, while hot air balloons float nearby with various advertising slogans.

REFERENCE:

Illusions 73, 238; Magic, p. 78