In the 1983 exhibition catalogue of his works, Alain Weill, the curator at the Musée de l’Affiche, correctly referred to Jean-Alexis Rouchon (1794-1878) as the “Pioneer of the Illustrated Poster.” Rouchon invented the system of hand-coloring posters by modifying a system that had been used for wallpaper designs. Active as a printer in Paris from 1840 to 1865, his posters offer us a panorama of Parisian life of the Second Empire. This hand-colored pochoir poster is a veritable time capsule of lithographic advertising and fashion. The gentlemanly wares on display are likely available thanks to Barthelemy Thimmonier’s development of a reinvented sewing machine in 1829. The printer’s testimonial is handwritten at lower right, and the poster also includes the signature of Charles Perusseaux, the past director of the poster collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale. Although Rouchon became the preeminent producer of 1850s French posters, it should be kept in mind that they were not collected at that time and therefore not saved, making them extremely rare in today’s poster market.
Imp. Rouchon, Paris
literature: Rouchon, listing, p. 122; PAI-LXXXIX, 121