Vintage Poster Archives
Michelin Bibendum 1900s | Pneu Velo Advertising Poster
Michelin Bibendum 1900s | Pneu Velo Advertising Poster
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Bibendum rides a black bicycle across a moonlit Parisian park, an Edwardian woman in a scarlet red dress seated behind him and waving to the watching crowd. A smiling full moon hangs in a cobalt blue sky at upper right. Glass coldframe panels in the foreground shelter flowering plants. Above the scene: PNEU VELO MICHELIN in yellow outlined block capitals. Below: LE MEILLEUR, LE MOINS CHER, the best, the cheapest.
Designed by O'Galop (Marius Rossillon, 1867–1946) for Michelin around 1900–1905, and printed by Schutmurrs at Tournon-sur-Rhône, this nocturnal landscape composition belongs to the earliest phase of Bibendum's advertising life. Rossillon had created the tire-figure mascot for Michelin in 1898; his posters for the company through the early 1900s established the visual grammar that subsequent artists would borrow and extend for decades. This variant, with its crowded Belle Époque park setting and its jaunty double-ride, predates the better-known 1912–1913 solo-cyclist editions printed by Chaix in Paris, and carries a social warmth that later Michelin posters set aside. The cobalt and yellow palette reflects Michelin's rebrand from its original green-and-red identity, adopted after 1899.
The design sits naturally alongside the broader Cappiello and Chéret tradition of early French commercial lithography: a bold central figure, high-contrast colour, and a legible message delivered with wit.
Reproduced as a giclée print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper, using pigment-based archival inks for lasting colour fidelity.
