Vintage Poster Archives
Plasson Cycles 1897 | Manuel Robbe Cycling Poster
Plasson Cycles 1897 | Manuel Robbe Cycling Poster
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A woman in a wide-brimmed black hat and dotted blouse sits astride a Plasson bicycle; a moustachioed man in dark clothing crouches at the front forks, steadying the machine. Behind them, a high-contrast crimson-and-cream striped sunset sky fills the upper field. Silhouetted trees stand mid-right. Vine foliage climbs the left border and arches over the top, its tendrils woven directly into the hand-lettered PLASSON brand name. CYCLES runs in vertical black capitals down the right margin. Two figures, both rendered in flat black, hold the composition together against the warm beige ground and the saturated red sky.
Designed by Manuel Robbe (1872-1936) for the Paris bicycle manufacturer Plasson, whose workshop occupied 37, 39, 41 Rue des Cloys, the poster was printed by the Societe Parisienne d'Impressions, 49, Boulevard du Montparnasse, around 1897. Robbe studied at the Academie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, won a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1900, and produced only a handful of advertising posters during the 1890s before concentrating on the colour aquatints for which he is best known. The Cycles Plasson commission is among the most reproduced of his poster works, and one of the cleaner examples of Belle Epoque cycling advertising.
The flat graphic style, Japanese-influenced silhouette work, organic typographic integration, and vivid flat-colour sky place this firmly in the Art Nouveau lithographic tradition active in Paris from the early 1890s. The image also carries period social meaning: in 1897 the bicycle represented personal freedom for Parisian women, and bicycle manufacturers routinely used female riders as the central figure in their advertising, selling liberation alongside the machine itself.
Reproduced from an archival source as a fine art print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper. A natural choice for a home office, study, or gallery wall where French graphic design from the turn of the century sits well.
