Le Markstein sits 1,240 metres up in the Vosges. This poster, designed for the Chemins de Fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine, promoted the resort as the region's new high-altitude winter sports station. The railway operated the Alsace and Lorraine network from 1919 until it became part of the SNCF on 1 January 1938. A dealer listing gives the artist as H. Chauffard, though some read the signature as Choucard.
The signature on known examples is hard to read, and a 1932 tax stamp on an auction copy gives the firmest date. Lucien Serre & Cie of Paris lithographed it, a printer that also produced work for the PLM.
On the poster
A female skier in a deep crimson turtleneck stands on a rose-tinted Vosges snowfield, orange-red wooden skis crossing the foreground. Behind her are a lone descending figure in the mid-distance, a large modernist hotel complex across the hillside, scattered skiers on the upper slopes and a flat cobalt sky filling the top quarter of the sheet. The pale snowfield takes nearly the whole surface, and the figure is the one colour accent in the lower third.
About this print
A digitally restored reproduction, printed on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art paper with pigment inks.
