Vintage Poster Archives
Royal Malaga 1895 | Vintage Advertising Poster
Royal Malaga 1895 | Vintage Advertising Poster
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A front-facing tiger fills the centre of this French chromolithograph, its amber and black markings rendered with the naturalistic precision that Imprimerie Chaix brought to commercial printing in the 1890s. Above the animal, a Spanish royal crown sits on a teal ground, flanked by arced text reading 'PROVENANT DES ANCIENNES PROPRIÉTÉS ROYALES'. Ribbon banners carry the Latin motto 'SANITAS ET VIRES', health and strength.
The poster was produced by Imprimerie Chaix on the Rue Brunel in Paris, the press that Jules Chéret sold in 1881 and continued to direct through the height of the Belle Époque. The commission came from Emile Greloud, Bordeaux-based general agent for Royal Malaga, a fortified sweet wine from Spain's Málaga province. By the 1890s, Málaga wines were widely distributed in France and northern Europe, marketed as tonic beverages, a category that sat between the drinks trade and the patent medicine trade. The motto 'Sanitas et Vires' (health and strength) and the body copy recommending a glass 'pour conserver et réparer vos forces' (to maintain and restore your strength) are typical of this dual positioning.
The tiger was not an arbitrary choice. In Belle Époque tonic advertising, the large cat was a recurring visual argument: the animal's physical power translated into a claim about the product. The footer panel, with its red Celtic-style border ornament, names Greloud as 'Agent Général' in a red and black Chaix house type that appears consistently on Bordeaux-distributed French trade posters of the period.
A natural fit for anyone drawn to the graphic vocabulary of the Belle Époque, or to the history of French wine and tonic advertising before the First World War.
