X2101

American Musical

Show Boat

Collins Cover Announcement

BROADWAY MUSICALS 

Showboat

The mighty Mississippi River is the setting for this handpainted COLLINS First Day Cover . 'Showboat" was heralded as the outstanding commercial and artistic triumph of the 19271928 Broadway season. It was based on a novel by Edna Ferber which was musically adapted by Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern. The acclaimed musical was set in the 1880's, the heyday of traveling showboats.

First Day Cover art is a wonderful way to expand on the stamps themselves. In this case, I chose to encompass a more panoramic sweep and my hand-painted cachet pictures a pair of riverboat travelers standing on the deck dressed in their splendid attire. The lady wears a plumed pink hat and a floor length color coordinated dress. A top hat and walking stick are the accessories for her gentleman companion fashionably dressed in a blue suit. Their gaze is drawn to mid-river where a showboat under a full head of steam bears down on them. The tall, twin stacks belch puffs of glowing orange/yellow smoke and embers. The boat itself is an ornate affair with several decks fully visible. In the 1880's this was the world of the festive riverboats and was the only way to travel in style and grandeur the watery highway of the imposing Missisippi River.

I nd-painted lettering in bright.red sets the tone for this fine FDC -- Showboat! Item #X2101. $10.75.