Poster for 'Hamlet' (1899)

Sarah Bernhardt played the male hero in Shakespeare's Hamlet, translated into French for her by Eugène Morand and Marcel Schwob. Mucha stresses Hamlet's relationship with the ghost of his murdered father, whose figure looms in the background, stalking the ramparts of Elsinore. Hamlet's obsession with death is emphasised by the inclusion of the drowned Ophelia in the poster who lies decorated with flowers, in the coffin-like panel at Hamlet's feet. Hamlet was the last poster Mucha made for Sarah.