Le Grand Siècle de l’Affiche · The Masters
Affiches Charles Verneau — "La Rue"
Théophile Alexandre Steinlen · Affiches Charles Verneau, Paris, 1896
What it is
A colour lithographic advertising poster designed by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen in 1896 for the Paris printing house Charles Verneau. Its subject is an ordinary city street: workers, a nursemaid, and a passing crowd rendered at life size.
Why it matters
Steinlen built the poster as a showpiece for Verneau's own lithographic trade, so the advertisement and the argument are the same thing — look what this press can put on a wall. It belongs to the Belle Époque boom in large-format street lithography, and it takes as its subject the exact place posters lived: the pavement and the working crowd that moved along it.
What to notice
Look for the life-size figures banded across a single continuous strip — this is a multi-sheet panorama meant to be pasted up as one unbroken length.
The street advertising itself, at the scale it was walked.
Provenance
- School
- Belle Époque — the Affiche (France)
- Designer
- Théophile Alexandre Steinlen
- Printer / house
- Charles Verneau
- Format
- Advertising poster
- Poster published
- Affiches Charles Verneau, Paris, 1896
- Source
- Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica) · btv1b9011731v
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the poster’s own publication year. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-18.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 40x60" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
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