$ 2,450
Fontainebleau-Avon – Julien Lacaze – c. 1930
Original French railway travel poster for Fontainebleau-Avon, designed by Julien Lacaze and dating from circa 1930. This exceptionally decorative image presents the famous Château de Fontainebleau and its gardens through a striking view across the water, dominated in the foreground by one of the sculptural eagles associated with the palace’s celebrated fountains and basins.
Lacaze uses a particularly rich Art Deco palette of turquoise, orange, purple and deep green, transforming the historic château and its reflections into a bold, almost graphic composition. The poster promotes Fontainebleau and neighboring Avon, easily reached from Paris and long celebrated for the royal château, its formal gardens and the surrounding Forest of Fontainebleau.
Julien Lacaze was a prolific French painter and poster artist who produced numerous travel designs for the great French railway companies, including the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée (PLM). His railway posters are particularly admired for combining recognizable landscapes and architecture with the strong color and simplified forms characteristic of French travel advertising between the wars.
Printed in Paris by Lucien Serre & Cie, an important printer of French railway and tourism posters of the period. The PLM emblem appears prominently in the upper right, while the inscription at the bottom indicates that the poster was issued by “L’ESSI” Syndicat d’Initiatives, the local tourism organization.
A beautiful and increasingly difficult-to-find original French railway poster, professionally backed on linen and preserved in exceptional condition.
Artist: Julien Lacaze
Printer: Lucien Serre & Cie, Paris
Size: 25 x 39 inches / 62 x 100 cm
Linen: On linen
Technique: Lithograph
Year: c. 1930
Condition: Excellent