Alphonse Mucha's lithographed poster for Sarah Bernhardt's revival of Victorien Sardou's Gismonda appeared on the streets of Paris. The commission came through the printer Lemercier after Bernhardt urgently needed a poster ready for the New Year continuation of the play. Mucha's tall, pale, Byzantine-inflected image rejected the louder color habits of much commercial poster design and turned a theatrical advertisement into a public artwork. Contemporary accounts and later histories treat its street appearance as the breakthrough that made Mucha famous almost overnight. Bernhardt responded by ordering further copies and giving Mucha a multi-year contract, making the poster a hinge between celebrity publicity, color lithography, and the wider visibility of Art Nouveau.
The poster helped establish Mucha as a defining figure of Art Nouveau graphic art.
