Martin Lawrence Galleries

About the Work

"Prenez du Cacao Van Houten" is an 1886 chromolithograph of Adolphe Willette's poster, printed at Imprimerie Chaix under the direction Ernest Maindron and G. Boudet for the lauded poster collection 'Les Affiches Illustrées.’ From Volume I of ‘Les Affiches Illustrées,’ a total of 525 portfolios were published, consisting of 500 prints on Vélin and 25 on Japon. The sheet size is 12 x 9”. The artwork ships framed and accompanied by a copy of the publisher’s documentation. Please contact the gallery regarding available frame options.

The ‘Les Affiches Illustrées’ series is comprised of three volumes of 19th century prints produced in 1886, 1896, and 1897. This is a limited edition, numbered series with a total edition size of 525, 1,025, and 1,050, respectively (the prints themselves are not numbered). The ‘Les Affiches’ chromolithographs were printed by Imprimerie Chaix, just as the Les Maitres de l’Affiches sets were, but they are slightly smaller (about 2/3rd the size of Les Maitres de l’Affiches), and highly colored. The publishers, Maindron and Boudet, chose each image in the Les Affiches collection because they were believed to be the most remarkable, the most successful, and the most deserving by the two collectors.

Ernest Maindron was the first real collector of posters. He was the first to organize a poster exhibition and the first to publish a book about posters. He also held a very prominent position as Secretary of the Academy of Science.

The printer, Imprimerie Chaix was Jules Cheret's own printing shop and apart from printing all of Cheret's posters, they executed many of the posters for other artists. Imprimerie Chaix was the main lithographic poster printer at the turn of the 19th century.