Cycles Andru

Created during the height of the French bicycle boom, this impressive Belle Époque poster advertises Cycles Andru, located at 10 Rue de Saint-Quentin in Paris. The artist, Douzinelle,presents an elegantly dressed young woman returning from a country excursion, guiding her bicycle with one hand while carrying a freshly gathered bouquet in the other. Her brilliant red jacket and fashionable high collar stand out against the softly rendered rural landscape and sweeping road behind her.The image associates the Andru bicycle with refinement, leisure and independence rather than focusing on the machine’s technical features. By the end of the nineteenth century, cycling had become an important symbol of personal mobility, particularly for women, who could travel independently and participate more freely in public life. Douzinelle’s confident cyclist embodies this new sense of freedom while retaining the elegance expected of fashionable Belle Époque advertising. Very little reliable biographical information appears to have survived concerning Douzinelle. The artist is primarily known today through this Cycles Andru design, and neither confirmed birth and death dates nor a substantial record of other works could be located. The poster nevertheless demonstrates a skilled command of figure drawing, fashionable detail and commercial lithographic composition characteristic of French poster art at the end of the nineteenth century.This is an Original Vintage Poster, it is not a reproduction. This poster is conservation mounted, linen backed and in excellent condition. We guarantee the authenticity of all our posters.