Artist: Anonymous
Condition: A- *
Dimensions: 27.8 x 42 in. / 70.6 x 106.7 cm.
Circa: 1951
Linen Backed
* See Condition Grading section for further details
There is very minor edge and corner wear; some scattered edge tears; some toning along the upper left edge; some surface scuffs/abrasions; this great Pan Am poster should display fabulously once framed.
This poster portrays Beirut as both the Paris of the Middle East and the gateway to antiquity. The composition assembles its signifiers with confidence: Roman columns at Baalbek, a Phoenician lion carving, a camel rider, a musician, and a Pan Am Clipper overhead. It's a city presented at the height of its cosmopolitan moment, a decade before the travel writers arrived and two before everything changed.
The 1951 copyright date places this squarely in Pan Am's golden age of destination lithography, when the airline was actively mapping the world for a new class of long-haul traveler.