Jules Chéret (1836-1932) is often referred to as the Father of the Modern Poster. He did not invent posters, and he didn’t invent color lithography, but he invented the way color lithography is still used to make posters. Below are two examples of posters before Jules Chéret’s time. They were black and white, stark, straighforward, and …
Movie Poster Restoration
For the most part, the restoration of movie posters is handled no differently than that of any poster. I say for the most part because most posters in the 20th century were printed on paper using lithography, but of course some posters were printed on thick card. Some posters were printed using silkscreen. Some were …
Steamboats: The EOT
While much of our work at Fourth Cone Restoration has to do with vintage posters and works on paper, every so often we get unusual projects that challenge our capabilities. Restoring three-dimensional objects forces us to come up with new problem solving methods, which is something we truly like to do. In recent months we’ve been working …
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: My vintage movie poster has a tear. Can you fix it?
A: Yes, we can! We can either mend the tear by linen backing the poster, so that the tear is still visible but won’t come apart, or we can linen back and restore the tear, so that the tear is not noticeable.
The Great Mexican War
This blog post is in three sections. One: Concerning the physical work we’ve done to this particular poster, our process and the before/after photos. Two: Dealing with the movie The Great Mexican War, and the man who made the movie. Three: A brief but self-indulgent history of Mexico, as it relates to the movie. One This poster came …
Cappiello’s Green Devil, Part II
This is the second part of the two-part series on Cappiello’s Green Devil. Read the first part here. After having mounted the poster and let it dry, the poster’s larger holes were all patched using archival acid-free paper. The smaller cracks and ridges were smoothed with a filling compound. Once the poster’s surface is completely flat …
Cappiello’s Green Devil, Size XXL
Leonetto Cappiello was an Italian-French poster artist who gained popularity during the early part of the twentieth century, and the Maurin Quina absinthe ad is one of his best-known images. It depicts a cartoonish green devil, floating against a black field and uncorking a bottle of liqueur emblazoned with the company’s label. This style of advertising …
Les Rives du Bosphore Wallpaper, Part Deux
The second half of our project restoring Joseph Dufour’s Les Rives du Bosphore wallpaper, from 1812.
Joseph Dufour, Les Rives du Bosphore, ca. 1812
Les Rives du Bosphore was an edition of wallpaper made by Joseph Dufour in Paris sometime before 1812. It’s so old that they don’t even know how old it is, and so rare that only a few examples are known to exist in the US. Several months ago we were approached to restore an original edition …
Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root Cure
Greetings from Fourth Cone! It’s been a very long and busy summer for us, but we’re finally taking time out to share a recent project with you. This is an advertisement for a patent medicine invented by a Dr. S. Andral Kilmer in late 19th Century Binghamton, NY. Kilmer was bought out by his brother …
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