Lot 80

Alfons Mucha (1860 - 1939) A LOTTERY POSTER

Poster for the National Unity Lottery for Southwestern Moravia in Brno. The organization was a regional branch of a nationwide effort to establish schools that would teach Czech and Moravian children in their native language. Such schools had to be supported by private means, as all schools provided by the state, then still part of the Austrian Empire, used only German. The symbolic mother of the Czech nation bows down in despair and leans against a pagan Slavic idol. The girl in the foreground with textbooks looks at the lottery ticket buyer for urgent help.