Pastilles Geraudel

Artist: Jules Cheret French (1836-1932)

Title: Pastilles Geraudel

Plate: PG.1

Description: Condition A.
Original colour stone lithograph 
Printed by Imprimerie Chaix, Paris 1895 
Backed on linen. 
Reference: Chéret, 1181; Broido, 910; DFP-II, 259; Health Posters, 6; 
Shipped rolled via Fedex. 

Certificate of Authenticity.

Sheet Size: 33 1/2 in x 47 1/2 in / 85 cm x 120.6 cm

Price: Sold

Please check out my other Jules Cheret Posters

Sold for $7800.00 Swann Auction Gallery NY, Jan 2008
Sold for $8625.00 Poster Auctions Int. NY, May 2007

Prancing through a blizzard as if she were two-stepping through falling cherry blossoms, this blithe figure is courting a cough that only Géraudel lozenges could fend off. Which stands to reason since their common sense slogan, “‘If you cough, take Géraudel Pastilles’ appears like a leitmotiv in all the publicity campaigns for the product, whether in France, or as far abroad as China. . . . This is one of the most striking examples of the work by Jules Chéret . . . The clarity of the color is astonishing and denotes the influence of Impressionist painting” (Health Posters, p. 14).

Posted on a Paris street, soon to be lost for eternity ca. 1896.
Photo by Jean-Eugène Auguste Atget (French, 1857–1927) 

Geraudel was a pharmacist who invented a cough drop that went on to became very successful thanks almost entirely to his talent as a marketer, rather than the product's medicinal properties. He was both an admirer and a friend of Cheret's, and frequently commissioned him to design posters for his company. Geraudel also helped to support and promote Cheret in another project, as he was the financial investor behind the Courrier Francais, which published small-format versions of many of Cheret's posters. It is interesting to note that this is Cheret's only poster to show any kind of weather. (Swann)

Jules Cheret, The Father of the Poster.


"Cheret's earliest known poster, dated 1858, is for the theatre, and from there he went on to prepare some 500 posters for various theatres, cabarets, music-halls, individual performers and shows of every description. The Folies-Bergere was one of his frequent clients for three decades (60 posters) and so were the Alcazar, the Ambassadeurs, the Moulin Rouge, the Hippodrome and the Musee Grevin. Some of his happiest and most popular designs are in this category. He could exercise his uncanny ability to capture the dynamics of the stage in the movement of dancers, mimes and acrobats" (Rennert  PAI-VII)