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‘Le Pneu Michelin – Nunc est Bibendum!!’, 1898

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Reference: 6806

Marius Roussillon, (French 1867 – 1946) (‘O’Galop’)

Important original, first edition poster, dated 1898. Conservation linen mounted, framed to edge and glazed with UV Plexiglas.

Poster size: 60 x 48 inches (150 x 120 cm)

‘Le pneu Michelin boit l’obstacle’- Yes! ‘The Michelin tyre drinks up the obstacles’. Michelin humour in the form of the unmistakable image of Monsieur Bibendum. Marius Roussillon, working under his pseudonym ‘O’Galop’, dreamed up Bibendum, seen here attending a banquet and raising a toast – Nunc est Bibendum! (‘now let us drink’) – with a goblet filled with assorted road debris. His companions, tyre ‘Y’ and tyre ‘X’ alongside are, quite literally, deflated by it all.

The green background and the red lettering are exclusive to this incomparable 1898 first-edition Michelin poster, one of only a handful of first-edition examples to have survived. In 1899, Michelin changed their house colours to blue and yellow, and the subsequent, simplified editions of this poster bore their new colours in the place of the green and red of the first edition. A 19th Century piece of Automobile Art, for 21st Century collectors – ‘O’Galop’ at his inimitable best!

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