This poster was commissioned in 1895 by the Century Company for the October issue of its magazine, one of the many American book and magazine publishers that began hiring the top illustrators of the time to create small, distinctive advertising posters, many influenced by the French “artistic” posters of the decade, to attract its educated readers. After Harper’s began issuing such monthly posters in 1893, designed by its art director Edward Penfield, the Century Company hired Maxfield Parrish and other artists to produce posters and book covers that similarly represented the latest artistic trends. H.M. Lawrence’s Art Nouveau design here for The Century magazine, showing the stylized, flattened form of a sailboat, seems to be the only poster he designed for the publication and his work in general remains obscure. However, he did design the cover of a book published by the Century Company, also in 1895: Howard Pyle’s The Story of Jack Ballister’s Fortunes. Lawrence’s cover illustration features a stylized sailboat much like the one in this poster.