Rudge c.1890 Poster — Cycles Rudge

— Poster —
Cycles
RUDGE

FABRICATION
LA PLUS APPRÉCIÉE

L’ESSAYER
c’est
l’adopter

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

LITH. F. APPEL, PARIS

[An empty frame is printed across the foot of the sheet for the agent’s name.]

[A rider with a heavy mustache, in a short-sleeved black jersey with a sash in the French tricolor wound round his waist, crosses the sheet from right to left on a diamond-frame safety bicycle with fat pneumatic tires, sitting forward over low curved bars with his eyes on the road. Reeds and a broken fence line the river behind him, and a church with two towers stands among poplars on the far bank under a pink evening sky. CYCLES curls in black script over a tall black RUDGE edged in gold.

An English marque sold to the French in their own colors: the sash is the flag, and the slogan, to try it is to adopt it, is addressed to a buyer who has not yet ridden one.]