Rudge c.1898 Poster — Pal

— Poster —
RUDGE
16, RUE HALÉVY
PARIS

[In the sky behind the bicycle, faint, the monogram of the Paris agents inside a crescent and a star:]

DS

[Lettered on the front tire:]

PNEU CLINCHER

[Signed at the lower left:]

PAL

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

IMP. PAUL DUPONT, 4, Rue du Bouloi, PARIS.

[The second page is the same sheet in a later state, with a panel overprinted in white on orange at the upper right:]

NOUVEAUX
MODÈLES

[A pale goddess in streaming, half-transparent veils rises out of a crowd at dusk and lifts a diamond-frame bicycle high over her head in both hands. Below her a crowd of men and women from many countries, in caps and hats and shawls, reaches up toward the machine, some of them with bicycles of their own, and beyond them the skyline of Paris, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, stands black against a yellow and orange sky.

Jean de Paléologue, who signed PAL, drew this for Duncan, Suberbie and Company at 16, rue Halévy, Rudge’s agents in Paris, whose crescent-and-star monogram floats behind the frame. The museum holds two states of the sheet, and both are here: the first with the address alone, the second with a NOUVEAUX MODÈLES panel added at the upper right to carry the same picture into a new season.]