L'Horloge - Les Freres Leopold - 1877

VINTAGE FRENCH POSTER - GICLÉE PRINT

This vintage French poster is an example of "Affiche Artistique", advertising the appearance of the acrobatic team "Les Freres Leopold".  The poster artist is Jules Chéret, published in 1877. 

Dimensions:  16.25" x 24"

Artists in the late 1800s found opportunities to present their work to the masses through advertising art that began to appear as billboards and posters, plastering the streets of Paris.  “Affiche Artistique” was the term that the French used to describe a poster that contained artistic expression.  The art was so impressive to the public, people began to collect the posters as soon as they went up, which is why they are so scarce today.  Artists such as Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, Jules Chéret, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Pierre Bonnard and Eugène Grasset contributed to the creative body of work that became what some called  “a free museum for the masses”.  The craze for collecting these examples of modern art was even given the name, "affichomanie", meaning “artistic poster mania”.  Collectors today pay hundreds, if not thousands for original prints of these rare posters. 

We offer these exceptional vintage poster reproductions in the highest possible print quality.  Superior to most reproductions currently available on the market, our gallery quality prints are suitable for display in an art gallery or museum.  We begin with an ultra high resolution scan of the original artifact which we leave untouched, leaving intact the slightly distressed vintage character desirable in a collectible piece of this era.  Our state of the art, giclée reproduction process uses the latest technology: microscopic droplets of ink that render such a high resolution, that every minute detail of the original is intact.  Every pen line and brush stroke is visible.  Even very faint pencil lines are also visible due to the incredibly high quality of the reproduction process.  Our 8 color, archival quality inks and giclée printing process provide the most accurate color reproduction & are proven to last over a hundred years. Posters are available printed on museum quality archival paper or on repositionable media that allow you to plaster your walls with the “Affiche Artistique”, just as they were originally intended to be displayed. 

About the artist:

Jules Chéret
French, 1836-1932 

Considered by many the “Father of the Modern Poster”, Jules Chéret was an example of a self-made success, creating more than one thousand posters and publishing the work of many others.

Born in Paris, Jules was apprenticed to a lithographer at the age of thirteen.  Following his three year apprenticeship in Paris, Jules took an art course at the École Nationale de Dessin.  In 1859, Chéret traveled to London, where he trained in lithography until 1866, when he returned to Paris and began creating vividly colored poster ads for theaters and cabarets. 

Jules Chéret was called “the father of the women’s liberation” because of the women he featured in his art.  Chéret depicted the women as free-spirited and self confident, often clad in low-cut gowns and clearly unashamed of smoking or drinking in public.  His art proclaimed a new and more open atmosphere in Paris.  These liberated women were to become known as “Cherettes” and it was said that “It is difficult to conceive of Paris without its Cherettes.”.

Jules Chéret died in retirement in Nice in 1932 at the age of ninety-six, having been awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1890 for his outstanding contributions to the graphic arts.  Today, the work of Jules Chéret is widely sought after by collectors.