Peugeot c.1895 Poster — Ernest Vulliemin

— Poster —
CYCLES PEUGEOT
VALENTIGNEY – Doubs

REPRÉSENTANT :

[Signed at the lower right, above the lettering:]

E. VULLIEMIN.

[Printed beneath the frame at the lower right:]

IMPies LEMERCIER, PARIS.

[A modern library number is penciled on the paper margin below the imprint.]

[A cuirassier in a crested helmet with a long horsehair mane, a breastplate and white gloves sits a bay horse at the edge of an autumn wood. An infantryman in a blue greatcoat, red trousers and a kepi stands at the horse’s shoulder and reaches up to him, and the two men pass a dispatch between them while the infantryman steadies a diamond-frame bicycle with his other hand. Thin trees run up the sheet behind them, fallen leaves lie on the ground and a line of hills closes the distance. The lettering is set in yellow on a green field inside a black frame, with a blank line left at the foot for the agent’s name.

The picture takes a side in an argument the French army was having at the time: the bicycle as a dispatch carrier beside the horse rather than in place of it. Nothing in the scene suggests that the cavalry is being replaced, and the civilian buyer is sold the machine through the soldier. The empty line under REPRÉSENTANT shows that the sheet was printed to be overprinted by local agents.]