“Tournée du Chat Noir”
Here is one of the most wonderful illustrations to come from the golden age of poster art at the end of the nineteenth century.
“Tournée du Chat Noir”, often referred to as “Le Chat Noir’, is a color lithograph on paper designed by the Swiss artist, Théophile Steinlen, from 1896. This advertisement poster was commissioned for an upcoming tour of cabaret performers from the famous Le Chat Noir. The poster reads, “Soon, Tour of the Black Cat by Rodolphe Salis”.
This gorgeous poster features a now iconic black cat with yellow eyes. The cat is sitting with its attention towards the viewer. The tail curls around the name of the cabaret owner, Rodolphe Salis. Le Chat Noir was in the famous Montmartre neighborhood of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, which was a haven for artists at the time. A red halo surrounds the head of the cat, with the text, “Montjoye Montmartre”, which is a play on the Medieval French battle cry, “Montjoie! Saint-Denis”. The black cat is a reference to the silhouettes of cats that adorned the walls of the cabaret. Steinlen signed his name in the bottom left.
The cabaret periodically toured its famous shadow plays, which were an increasingly large part of the establishment’s entertainment between 1885 and 1896. Salis was the storyteller or emcee and would tell a story written by a local artist, while performers with cutout silhouettes made of cardboard and zinc, backlit behind a white screen, acted out the parts. The company toured during the summers, staying mostly in France, but sometimes traveling to other French speaking countries. Le Chat Noir reached its heyday in 1896, before the sudden death of the owner, Rodolphe Salis, in March 1897 at 45 years of age.
This original print of “Tournée du Chat Noir” is in the collections of the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Jersey in the United States. Other prints can be found at the Victoria and Albert Museum collection in London, England.
For more on Théophile Steinlen, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
