When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Frame measures 37” x 15”
Print measures 30” x 8”
Will be packaged very carefully for shipping!
This early, original print is mounted to a board with a printed outline to “frame” the print. All elements, including the frame, are from the same period, estimated to be around 1917-1918. A portion of the original title label can be seen near the bottom of the back of the frame.
My mother, the daughter of the original owner, placed a note on the cardboard backing indicating a value from an antiques references book more than 30 years ago
The history of this print:
After a well-received logo design for Cleveland candy manufacturer Clarence A. Crane, Maxfield Parrish was commissioned to create a chocolate box cover for the 1916 Christmas season. Crane hoped to appeal to upper-middle class buyers with an artistic approach to packaging, allowing him to sell chocolates at a premium. Given public interest in Middle Eastern literature and Parrish’s previous work illustrating a publication of TheArabian Nights, Crane suggested Persian poet Omar Khayyám's collection of quatrains Rubáiyát as the subject, and Parrish interpreted accordingly.
Rubaiyat marked a turning point in Parrish’s career. At the turn of the century, improvements in color lithography made art prints affordable to the general public, popularizing the medium. Though the public clamored for copies of Parrish’s work, he often earned scant royalties from reproductions based on his contracts with publishers. However, Rubaiyat was “totally sublime. It was so popular that Crane gave his customers the opportunity to buy poster reproductions of the painting for 10 cents. This was met with an overwhelming response, and 1,000 were ordered within two weeks” (Cutler et al., Maxfield Parrish and the American Imagists, New Jersey, 2004, p. 229). For the subsequent seasons, Crane commissioned two additional covers, Cleopatra and The Garden of Allah; with Garden of Allah, and Parrish shrewdly negotiated fifty percent royalties, which from then on allowed him to only accept other commissions that interested him artistically.
