(Surcouf Opéracomique after ...)

Christophe Adrien (Count) Regley de Koenigsegg

This image is based on a large poster for the opera “Surcouf,” a comedic romance and wartime folly written by Robert Planquette, which saw moderate success on its debut in 1887 in Paris. The poster featured the original cast member Louis-Auguste Morlet as the lead character Robert Surcouf, a merchant sailor in love with his boss’s daughter. The original artist is unknown, though the lithographic poster was printed by the Parisian print shop of Edward Ancourt, who printed many of the Belle Epoque’s most famous theater posters, and was published by L. Bathlot et Vve Heraud.

As usual for the detail-oriented miniaturist painter, Koenigsegg has captured every feature of the original poster down to its most fleeting element: the proud expression on Surcouf’s face; the cheeky, heart-shaped patch on the rear of the mid-ground sailor; even the cross-hatched shadows created by the original artist, all caught with a single-hair brush on Koenigsegg's watercolor paper at 1/8th the size.

Koenigsegg was himself a French Navy sailor who had achieved commandership by the end of his career. He began painting after retirement, taking particular joy in recreating the beautiful and exotic advertisements found in the metropolitan cities of his beloved France.