Rudge c.1897 Poster — Rudge-Whitworth Ltd., Cycle Manufacturers

— Poster —
[On the board on the wall, round the badge of an open hand:]

RUDGE-WHITWORTH
LIMITED

Rudge-Whitworth Ltd.

[Across the foot:]

RUDGE-WHITWORTH LTD.
CYCLE MANUFACTURERS
COVENTRY, BIRMINGHAM & LONDON

[Printed at the lower right:]

COURMONT FRÈRES, 10, Rue Bréguet. PARIS.
H. SCHMIEDER, Général Manager, 149, Grays Inn Road, LONDON

[Printed small at the lower left:]

PRINTED IN FRANCE

[A red library stamp is struck on the paper beside BIRMINGHAM.]

[A young woman in a navy cycling costume, a fitted jacket with full sleeves over a white shirt and bow tie, a long skirt and a tan belt, stands beside a drop-frame lady’s bicycle with one gloved hand on its bars and the other on her hip. She is looking up at a framed board on the wall that carries the firm’s name in a long script beside its badge, an open hand in a circle. Her hat is wrapped in a dark veil and topped with a red feather. A brick pier and a climbing plant fill the right of the picture, and a loose pink border wanders round the whole sheet and ends in a coil at the lower right.

Rudge and Whitworth had merged in 1894. This sheet was printed in Paris for the English firm, in English, and it addresses the woman buyer directly, with a lady’s machine and a lady who has stopped to read the name.]