Vintage Poster Archives
Cycles Plasson 1897 | Manuel Robbe Art Nouveau Poster
Cycles Plasson 1897 | Manuel Robbe Art Nouveau Poster
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A woman in brown bloomers and a feathered top hat mounts a red-framed Plasson bicycle, turning toward the viewer with an art nouveau poster confidence that her skirted contemporaries in the background conspicuously lack. Above the scene, a saturated red sky crossed by flat cream cloud forms fills the upper two-thirds of the composition. The address, 37, 39, 41, Rue des Cloÿs, Paris, is set below in a calm mixed typeface, the commercial anchor to Robbe's vivid design.
Manuel Robbe (1872–1936) trained at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under the master etcher Eugène Delâtre, and became one of the leading colour printmakers of the Belle Époque. He produced only a small number of advertising posters; two were for the Plasson bicycle company. This version was one of a companion pair designed to work as a visual sequence, the female cyclist in practical bloomers set against onlookers in conventional dress. The original stone lithograph, printed by Imprimerie Bourgerie & Cie, Paris c.1897, is held in the collection of the Musée Carnavalet.
The poster sits at the intersection of Art Nouveau commercial design and the late-1890s cycling craze that swept through Paris, a moment when the bicycle became a genuine vehicle for social change as much as transport. Robbe's wit in staging that change, with a composed central figure and two subtly judgmental bystanders, makes this one of the more pointed social observations in French poster art of the period.
Reproduced on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper using pigment-based archival inks. Colours are drawn from the restored original stone lithograph palette: cadmium red, cream, olive green, and dark brown.
