Cycling/ Poster/ Nantes/ Paris/ Track/ Press - Lot 94

Cycling/ Poster/ Nantes/ Paris/ Track/ Press Superb original canvas lithograph: "Cycles Phébus, Pneumatiques Nivet, Lisez le Vélo". This harmonious, dynamic composition depicts a track meeting in 1893, on a bustling velodrome, half-Paris (Buffalo?), half-Nantes (Longchamp, future Petit-Breton). It's the golden age of sprinters and stayers, the aristocracy of velocipedics in silk jerseys. Road racing was in its infancy, and even Desgrange was against it. The new life was velodromes, with orchestras, select audiences, well-constructed meetings and good-natured flirting. The yellow jersey, bib 1, doesn't mince his words, while his comrades explain themselves on a track made of cement, wood or clay. Here we read the big fashionable newspaper, the little "vert", the advertisements proclaiming the superiority of Phébus cycles and Nivet tires. Humber, Raleigh or Rouxel are all rubbish compared to Phébus, and the bikes are like liver pâté, yes... "Me, since I've had a Phébus, my life has been a daily sunshine...And when I adopted the Nivets, I can't tell you... Michelin, Dunlop and others, to the cupboard... Between Paris and its Avenue de la Grande-Armée and Nantes, my heart is called Phébus-Nivet". 135.5 x 93 cm. Lithograph. GOOD CONDITION.