circa 1900–1910
Brindamour
The World Renowned Magician
Listen to the story
A Local Handbill with Global Ambition
Narrated by Dominic
World renowned, most costly, greatest of its kind. The printer has wisely left modesty off the bill.
01
The artwork
This horizontal handbill uses heavy black display type, a small portrait, and dense local information. ‘Brindamour’ dominates the center, while the Woonsocket Opera House, dates, and performance times establish the immediate practical purpose.
Cheap monochrome printing did not mean quiet language. The claims are immense, set in typefaces that jostle for attention like barkers outside a fairground. It is advertising designed to work quickly, then disappear.
The displayed item is a reproduction of a local advertising handbill. No year appears on the surviving design, so its date remains approximate.
02
The performer
Brindamour was the stage name of Eugenio Brindamour, an escape artist and magician active around the turn of the twentieth century. He became known for restraints and escapes before Houdini’s name completely dominated that field.
The handbill offers a reminder that theatrical history is crowded with once-famous names. Brindamour could be billed as world renowned and still require recovery by later collectors, historians, and the occasional unusually persistent hotel theatre.
“Presenting the Grandest and Most Costly Aggregation of Its Kind”
Read the complete audio transcript
Welcome to the Magic Poster Tour at Poe’s Magic Theatre, inside the historic Lord Baltimore Hotel.
This stop features Brindamour and His Great Company, a circa 1900–1910 piece billed as “The World Renowned Magician.”
This horizontal handbill uses heavy black display type, a small portrait, and dense local information. ‘Brindamour’ dominates the center, while the Woonsocket Opera House, dates, and performance times establish the immediate practical purpose.
Cheap monochrome printing did not mean quiet language. The claims are immense, set in typefaces that jostle for attention like barkers outside a fairground. It is advertising designed to work quickly, then disappear.
The displayed item is a reproduction of a local advertising handbill. No year appears on the surviving design, so its date remains approximate.
Brindamour was the stage name of Eugenio Brindamour, an escape artist and magician active around the turn of the twentieth century. He became known for restraints and escapes before Houdini’s name completely dominated that field.
The handbill offers a reminder that theatrical history is crowded with once-famous names. Brindamour could be billed as world renowned and still require recovery by later collectors, historians, and the occasional unusually persistent hotel theatre.