Vintage Poster Archives
Cycles Griffon c.1900 | Walter Thor Vintage Cycling Poster
Cycles Griffon c.1900 | Walter Thor Vintage Cycling Poster
Couldn't load pickup availability
A man in a dark suit and flat cap stands on a wooden dock above the Seine, both hands resting on the handlebars of a teal-framed Griffon bicycle. He raises one hand toward a small rowing boat crossing the luminous yellow-green river. Trees and a boathouse occupy the far bank. Thor places the figure in back view and the bicycle in profile, directing the eye outward rather than at the viewer, a compositional choice that turns a product advertisement into a quiet riverside scene.
Designed by Walter Thor (1870–1929), a German-born painter trained at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts who worked extensively in Paris. Thor produced a number of posters for Griffon, a cycle manufacturer established in Courbevoie, Seine, in the late 1890s. The printer was Imp. Elleaume of Paris, confirmed in French archive records. The poster dates to the early 1900s, when Griffon was building its reputation as a leading French cycle brand before its later expansion into motorcycles and tricars.
The teal bicycle frame against the chrome-yellow sky is a carefully considered lithographic palette, characteristic of the Art Nouveau advertising work Thor produced for French transport and leisure brands across this period.
Reproduced on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper using pigment-based archival inks. A natural fit for anyone interested in Belle Époque cycling culture, early French commercial illustration, or the poster art of the 1900s.
