Le Grand Siècle de l’Affiche
The French Wing
The Belle Époque — the school where the poster became art.
1891–1930
Jules Chéret invented the artistic poster and then curated its canon himself: Les Maîtres de l’Affiche (1895–1900), 256 plates printed at Imprimerie Chaix, is this wing’s spine — a ready-made, fully public-domain launch collection that arrives with its own provenance story attached. Around it: Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen, Grasset, pre-1931 Mucha and Cappiello, and the pochoir fashion plates of the Gazette du Bon Ton.
Why this school is here
Belle Époque — the Affiche
France · 1891–1900
Pre-1931 publication clears under the family’s U.S.-seller public-domain framework.
Collections
The Wing’s Spine
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
The era’s finest posters, curated by Chéret himself, printed at Imprimerie Chaix.
1895–1900 · France · Paris
Chéret, Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen, Grasset
The Masters
Moulin Rouge, the Chat Noir, and the decade Paris made the street a gallery.
1891–1929 · France · Paris
Gazette du Bon Ton
The Pochoir Room
The Gazette du Bon Ton fashion plates — Barbier, Lepape — promoted up from the shelf.
1912–1925 · France · Paris
In the wing
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The Masters
La Loïe Fuller at the Folies-Bergère — Jules Chéret, 1897
The dancer as pure flame.
The Masters
Moulin Rouge — La Goulue
The poster that made lithography an avant-garde weapon.
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The Masters
Tournée du Chat Noir
The black cat that became a whole neighborhood’s brand.
The Masters
Gismonda — Alphonse Mucha, 1894
The poster that invented "Le Style Mucha" overnight.
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The Masters
JOB Cigarette Papers — Alphonse Mucha, 1896
The smoker as a Byzantine saint, hair turned to smoke.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche — Palais de Glace (Chéret)
One plate from the 256-plate founding anthology.
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Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche — Librairie Romantique (Grasset)
Grasset’s medievalist line, plated for the anthology.
The Masters
Lait Pur Stérilisé — Steinlen, 1894
A milk advertisement, and a whole family of cats.
The Pochoir Room
Gazette du Bon Ton — "Le Belvédère" (Barbier)
Couture, stencilled by hand.
The Pochoir Room
Gazette du Bon Ton — "L’Embarras du Choix" (Lepape)
Modern silhouette, pre-war Paris.
The Masters
Chocolat Klaus — Leonetto Cappiello, 1903
A green horse and rider, selling chocolate like a circus act.
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The Masters
France-Champagne — Pierre Bonnard, 1891
The poster that made Toulouse-Lautrec want to make posters.
The Masters
Exposition Eugène Grasset au Salon des Cent, 1894
The designer, announcing his own show.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Maîtres de l'Affiche, Vol. 2, Plate 74 — Carlos Schwabe
Symbolist reverie on a commercial press: Carlos Schwabe's plate 74, dated 1895.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 34 - Steinlen
Steinlen's Montmartre crayon, pulled at plate scale for the Chaix Maîtres de l'Affiche series.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 20 - Edward Penfield
America's first great poster man, admitted to the Paris canon at plate 20.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Les Maîtres de l'Affiche, Vol. 1, Plate 2 - Toulouse-Lautrec (Divan Japonais)
Lautrec's Divan Japonais, shrunk to collector scale as plate 2 of the first Maîtres de l'Affiche volume.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 16 - Beggarstaff
The Beggarstaffs' cut-paper flatness — the poster style that taught modern advertising to drop the detail.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 10 - De Feure
Georges de Feure's Symbolist line, shrunk to portfolio scale by the Chaix presses in 1895.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Maîtres de l'Affiche, Vol. 2, Plate 52 — Will Bradley
The lone American in the French portfolio: Will Bradley's flat inks and whiplash line, plate 52.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 04 - Dudley Hardy
An English poster hand pulled through a French press: Dudley Hardy's plate for volume one of Les Maîtres de l'Affiche.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 94 - Alfons Mucha
Mucha's Salon des Cent design, shrunk to a Chaix pocket lithograph and scanned so clean the line still sings.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Maîtres de l'Affiche, Vol. 2, Plate 82 — Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Toulouse-Lautrec for La Revue Blanche — spattered crachis over flat colour, Maîtres de l'Affiche plate 82.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 172 - Bradley
Will Bradley's flat color and hard black line — America's answer to Paris, issued as plate 172.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Maîtres de l'Affiche, Vol. 2, Plate 63 — Beggarstaffs
Cut-paper silhouettes on blank ground — the Beggarstaffs stripped the poster to its bones.
The Masters
Du soleil dans un verre... Cognac Monnet
Cappiello pours the sun itself into a brandy glass -- a 1927 lithograph in molten orange.
The Masters
Ambassadeurs — Yvette Guilbert, Tous les soirs
Yvette Guilbert on the Ambassadeurs bill, drawn tall and narrow to fit a Paris column.
The Masters
Affiches Charles Verneau — "La Rue"
Steinlen's 1896 street parade for the printer Verneau — a whole Paris pavement stretched life-size across a wall.
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The Masters
Aperitivo digestivo Fernet-Branca
Cappiello's 1911 Fernet-Branca poster, printed in Paris by Vercasson, still selling bitterness as spectacle.
The Masters
Le Petit Sou, journal de défense sociale
A newspaper poster from the artist who spent his career drawing the people it claimed to defend.
The Masters
Aristide Bruant dans son cabaret (de profil)
Black cape, red scarf, broad hat in profile — the silhouette that turned a singer into a logo.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Maîtres de l'Affiche, Vol. 2, Plate 88 — Privat-Livemont
A woman, a breaking wave and Art Nouveau lettering — the rare landscape plate in the series.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 27 - Alfons Mucha
Mucha at the exact moment the Paris poster trade decided he mattered.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 95 - Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen
Steinlen for the Chaix anthology — Montmartre's blunt draughtsman at collector's scale, 4381 x 6146.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 182 - Alfons Mucha
Mucha's Bieres de la Meuse woman, haloed and hair-swept, in the miniature Chaix reprint.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Maîtres de l'Affiche, Vol. 1, Plate 46 — Steinlen
Steinlen's cabaret poster, shrunk to a collector's plate and printed on Chaix's presses.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 175 - Paul Berthon
Berthon's stringed-instrument reverie in tendril-tangled Art Nouveau, printed landscape-wide.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 110 - Toulouse-Lautrec
Lautrec's Jane Avril, the dancer drawn as a single nervous line, at 4285 x 6001.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 114 - Alfons Mucha
Mucha's Lorenzaccio design, the tall narrow format that made the Sarah Bernhardt posters famous.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 99 - Ethel Reed
Ethel Reed's Miss Traumerei — the rare American woman admitted to the Paris poster canon.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 115 - Edward Penfield
The American in the French canon: Penfield's flat-colour poster style, plate 115 of volume 3.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 214 - Manuel Orazi
Orazi's Theodora for the Porte-Saint-Martin: Byzantine gold-work turned into theatre advertising.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 232 - William Nicolson
Nicholson's blunt British silhouette work - a maize flour advert with the drawing cut to the bone.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Maîtres de l'Affiche, Plate 238
Toulouse-Lautrec reduced to pocket size for the collector's portfolio that made poster art respectable.
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 227 - Paul Berthon
Berthon again, plate 227, the chalk-soft end of Art Nouveau at full poster height.
The Masters
Indispensable aux fumeurs — Cachou Lajaunie
A 1906 lithograph pitching liquorice pastilles to smokers — 140 by 99 centimetres of pure Cappiello nerve.
The Masters
Jane Avril — Jardin de Paris
Jane Avril mid-kick at the Jardin de Paris, framed by the neck of a double bass.
The Masters
Caudieux
Lautrec's café-concert comic Caudieux barrels across the stage, all bulk and momentum, signed with the artist's monogram.
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The Masters
Chocolat mexicain Masson, 91 rue de Rivoli, Paris
Grasset's 1892 chocolate poster, in the lettering variant that carries the 91 rue de Rivoli address.
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The Masters
Jeanne d'Arc — Sarah Bernhardt
Grasset armours Sarah Bernhardt as Joan of Arc — stained-glass outlines, banner and blade, in the model the actress herself approved.
The Masters
Absinthe Robette
A translucent-robed figure lifts a glass of green absinthe inside a halo of curling Art Nouveau line.
The Masters
Savon Cristel, Gosselies — savon mou, garanti pur
Soft soap sold with Art Nouveau grandeur — Privat-Livemont turns a Gosselies detergent into a lithographic reverie.
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The Masters
L'Escarmouche, journal illustré hebdomadaire
Ibels advertises a short-lived 1893 satirical weekly whose contributor list reads like a Nabis roll call.
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The Masters
Divan Japonais, 75 rue des Martyrs
A black-sheathed woman watches the cabaret stage while the singer above her is cropped clean off at the neck.