Peugeot c.1895 Poster — Albert Guillaume

— Poster —
PEUGEOT

SUCCÈS SANS PRÉCÉDENT
PARIS-NANTES
1025 Kilomètres sur route
Les 5 Premiers
sur BICYCLETTES
PEUGEOT

VALENTIGNEY (Doubs) PARIS, 32, Avenue de la Grande Armée
Bordeaux, 7, Allées de Tourny.

[Signed at the lower right:]

AGuillaume

[Printed up the left-hand edge of the sheet:]

AFFICHES-CAMIS, 58, r. St Sabin PARIS (DÉPOSÉE)

[The holding library’s number, 52941, is stamped small on the paper in several places.]

[A crowd of men in top hats, boaters and caps presses in front of a wall to read the result, which runs down the right of the sheet as if pasted there. A gentleman in a long yellow coat with a satchel on a strap points at it with his cane, a rider in a dark jersey and a polka-dot cap stands with his machine and a baker’s boy in a white apron, a basket balanced on his head, has stopped to look with his back to the viewer. Two dogs nose about the men’s feet. In the foreground a diamond-frame bicycle with PEUGEOT lettered on the down tube leans into the crowd.

Albert Guillaume was a caricaturist before he was a poster artist, and the joke is in the reading: the result is remarkable enough that the street has stopped to read the poster inside the poster. The foot of the sheet sets out all three of the firm’s addresses like a business card, the works at Valentigney, the Paris house at 32, avenue de la Grande Armée and a Bordeaux branch on the Allées de Tourny.]