Orignal 5e Salon Du Cycle Poster, By Maurice Neumont - 1897

This is an original lithographic poster created in 1897 by Maurice Neumont for the 5th Salon du Cycle — the prestigious annual Parisian exhibition that celebrated the bicycle at the height of its cultural moment. In fin-de-siècle France, the bicycle was not merely a vehicle: it was a symbol of modernity, freedom and social transformation, and the Salon du Cycle was its grand stage. The great poster artists of the era competed to capture its energy.

Maurice Neumont (1868–1930) was one of the most accomplished and versatile artists of his generation — painter, lithographer, illustrator and affichiste, trained under Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and later Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. A founding figure of the République libre de Montmartre alongside Jean-Louis Forain and Adolphe Willette, and a member of the Société des peintres-lithographes, his work spanned the full arc of the Belle Époque and the First World War — from joyful scenes of leisure and modernity to the iconic propaganda posters that defined a nation at war.

This 1897 poster predates his wartime fame and captures Neumont at his most exuberant — the bold lithographic colour, the dynamic composition, the artist's signature drawn directly into the stone. It is a document of a precise cultural moment: Paris in love with speed, with the open road, with the machine as art object.

The poster has been freshly linen backed — the gold standard of vintage poster conservation — and professional restorations have been carried out on areas of wear, ensuring the piece is stable, flat, and ready for framing. See pictures for full condition details.