Theo P. Wagner (active ca. 1890-1900) Dream, or The Chimera. 1894. Lithograph. 238 x 311. Stein and Karshan 91. Beautiful proof on heavy ivory laid paper, numbered "21" in the upper right corner of the subject and signed in pencil. Light marginal foxing. Filled and very oxidized edges, with small accidents at the edges. All margins [428 x 595]. Edition of 100 proofs. Dry stamp: The Original Print (Lugt 819). Theo P. Wagner was a mysterious artist who worked at the Molier Circus, where he performed a trapeze act with the Duke of La Rochefoucauld. He attracted the attention of Huysmans who devoted several lines to him in Some (1889). The author had noticed a watercolor by the artist at the Salon des Indépendants in 1884. It depicted clowns at the Cirque Molier. Wagner, whose biography is not known, also exhibited at the Salon de la Rose-Croix (1892). He produced a small number of lithographs. "Signac tells us more about the character. He tells us that he was a 'muscular athlete, trapeze partner of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld. Together they did a number at the concert in the rue de Lyon and this Wagner broke a leg. [...] Both of them now work at Molier's. [...] Theo Wagner was a student at the École des Beaux-Arts as well as the acrobat Duke. Seurat knew them there. Theo, not very wealthy, posed the nude - superb - one week, and the following week, in the same studio, conscientiously painted the model who had replaced him. In the meantime, he sold cufflinks under doors and, in the company of Sali and others, walked naked in the forest of Fontainebleau. Was a regular at the first "Chat Noir". The studio where he did the watercolor Le Cirque Molier was located at 13 rue Ravignan...', in other words, on the site of the Bateau-Lavoir, before it bore this illustrious name." (J. Bailly-Herzberg, Dictionnaire de l'Estampe en France 1830-1950, Paris, Flammarion, 1985, p. 341).