Vintage Poster Archives
La Francaise Diamant 1911 | Paris-Brest-Paris Cycling Poster
La Francaise Diamant 1911 | Paris-Brest-Paris Cycling Poster
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A nude winged figure, red wings and streaming auburn hair, rides a La Francaise Diamant bicycle at full speed against a black ground. A sweeping white tyre arc frames the composition, inscribed on its two curves with the dates that anchor the poster's argument: PARIS-BREST-PARIS 1901 and PARIS-BREST-PARIS 1911. The headline, set in yellow across the dark field, reads: "A DIX ANS D'INTERVALLE, LA VICTOIRE RESTE FIDELE A." Below, in bold white and yellow, the brand name: LA FRANCAISE DIAMANT. Victory, the composition argues, is not coincidence. Ten years apart, it comes back to the same bicycle.
Designed in 1911 by Michel Liebeaux (who signed his work as Mich, 1881–1923), this lithograph was printed by Affiches Marcial Goffin & Cie in Paris to mark La Francaise-Diamant's second victory in the Paris-Brest-Paris, the 1,200 km race run each decade as the ultimate test of bicycle and rider. The 1911 winner was Emile Georget, who completed the course in 50 hours and 13 minutes. The 1901 winner, Maurice Garin, rode the same brand, and went on to win the first Tour de France on a La Francaise bicycle two years later.
Liebeaux was among the most active French poster artists of his generation, working across cycling, motoring, and sporting advertising from 1904 until his death in 1923. His character-led compositions drew on the lithographic draughtsmanship of the Belle Epoque tradition while moving toward the graphic directness that would define French commercial art in the 1910s. This poster is among his most resolved designs: the allegorical figure rendered with real forward motion, the tyre spiral functioning as both compositional device and visual proof, the three-register typography absorbed into the whole without crowding the image.
Reproduced from the 1911 original lithograph on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper. A natural fit alongside early twentieth-century cycling history, Belle Epoque advertising design, or French graphic art of the pre-war period.
