Bleu Deschamps

Buy Art Prints Now
from Amazon

* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Bleu Deschamps by Alphonse Mucha

Bleu Deschamps was a laundry bluing made by Deschamps Frères in the Meuse, not a brand of modern detergent. Its advertising used blue to suggest the cleaner-looking white linen that the additive promised. Mucha produced more than one design for the firm: Rennert and Weill's catalogue lists Bleu Deschamps entries under 1897 and 1903.^[3] The Bibliothèque nationale de France holds a Champenois colour lithograph titled Bleu Deschamps. En vente ici with a 1903 legal deposit.^[1] This page's inherited reproduction and wording identify the advertised brand, but its exact printing and relationship to the earlier design remain untraced.

At a Glance

• Date1903 BnF deposit; separate 1897 design^[1][3]
• BrandBleu Deschamps, laundry bluing^[2]
• Documented designs1897 and 1903 in Rennert and Weill^[3]
• BnF record1903 legal deposit; colour lithograph^[1]
• BnF printerF. Champenois^[1]
• Local reproductionexact issue and source copy unverified

Contents

1. What the blue product was
2. A shop message and an ideal of clean linen
3. Two designs and several printed uses
4. Dating this page's reproduction

What the blue product was

A contemporary Deschamps Frères advertising card preserved by the Mucem lists Bleu Deschamps among the firm's products. The card's reverse names blue, violet, rose and green ultramarines, indigo blue, fragrant and unscented balls, and marked cylinders. It gives business addresses at Vieux-Jeand'Heurs and Renesson in the Meuse.^[2] This is unusually direct evidence for the commercial setting behind Mucha's poster. It also shows why describing the product simply as “soap” or “detergent” misses the point: this was a blue colour additive sold in several forms, connected to laundering and the appearance of whiteness.

The Mucem card is not a Mucha print. It is a separate piece of the manufacturer's advertising, catalogued broadly between 1886 and 1903. Its value here is the product language and address, not a way to date or measure the poster. The card refers to exhibition claims made for Deschamps colours; those claims are part of the firm's promotion, not independently verified awards in this article.

The Musée barrois in Bar-le-Duc describes Charles Freund-Deschamps as director of the Deschamps Frères bluing works in the Saulx valley, at L'Isle-en-Rigault and Trémont-sur-Saulx. Its account also records his substantial gifts of graphic art to the museum between 1891 and 1908.^[4] A French university study reports that he commissioned a Mucha advertising design and donated a Bleu Deschamps example to the museum in 1908; its caption cautiously describes that object as a possible fabric impression and dates it around 1901.^[5] The questioned support and approximate date should stay attached to that museum object, rather than becoming fixed facts about every printed version.

A shop message and an ideal of clean linen

The established description of the local reproduction records the large brand name and the short line “En vente ici”, meaning “on sale here.” Together they turn an ornamental figure into a shop advertisement: the first line says what to remember, while the second tells a customer that the product is available at this location. The existing description also notes pale drapery, blue accents and a circular field. Those elements connect the idea of white laundry and blue colouring to an appealing figure without giving a technical demonstration of the additive.

There is a useful difference between a product claim and a visual suggestion. The business card tells us what Deschamps Frères sold.^[2] The poster lettering tells us where a viewer could buy it.^[1] The woman and ornament invite a feeling of freshness and ease. Rennert and Weill's discussion of the later design, quoted by a French auction catalogue, similarly describes Mucha as selling the satisfaction of the result rather than showing the product's packaging or a step-by-step wash.^[6] That is the catalogue authors' interpretation, not a documented statement of Mucha's intention.

Two designs and several printed uses

Rennert and Weill's 1984 specialist catalogue separates Bleu Deschamps (1897) from Bleu Deschamps (1903) in its contents.^[3] A French auction catalogue describes a black-chalk study for a Bleu Deschamps advertisement as made about 1896–97. It notes an 1898 dedication on the drawing and explains that this later inscription should not simply be treated as its design date.^[7] The study establishes early work for the firm, but a text description alone does not prove which exact lines of this website's reproduction it preceded.

The BnF separately catalogues Bleu Deschamps. En vente ici as a colour lithograph, printed by Champenois, with publication recorded as [DL 1903]: a legal-deposit year.^[1] It gives 48 × 33 cm for its held sheet and cites Rennert and Weill's no. 85, the later catalogue entry. That is the strongest documentary anchor for a 1903 issue. It is not evidence that Mucha had never advertised the product before 1903; the specialist catalogue and earlier study point the other way. Nor can the BnF sheet's dimensions be transferred to this site's digital file.

Other forms extended the campaign. A French 2018 sale catalogue identifies a lithographed metal sign made from the image of the 1897 poster; its 35 × 25 cm size belongs to that metal object.^[8] Another auction record describes a 1903 calendar panel on paper mounted to board, still bearing its original daily calendar pad; a separate lot lists four Ages of Life calendar panels carrying the brand.^[6][9] They are evidence that the name and Mucha-associated artwork circulated in more than one physical format. Their descriptions do not establish that all these objects share the same design or that the site's image came from any one of them.

The 1903 calendar catalogue identifies a more specific variant: its border line is red in place of gold in the version discussed by Rennert and Weill.^[6] That is a cataloguer's comparison of printed examples, not evidence that the earlier 1897 poster had the same composition. It shows why even two objects assigned to the second design may differ in colour and function. A sheet with a dated calendar pad, a shop sign and a deposited lithograph should each retain its own record until their relationship is documented.

The connection between Mucha and the manufacturer also continued outside the commission. A sale catalogue describes Charles Freund-Deschamps's own bound copy of Mucha's Documents décoratifs and a 1904 photographic reproduction bearing an affectionate dedication to Madame Freund-Deschamps.^[10] That held-copy description documents a personal gift within the family circle. It neither dates the first advertising design nor proves that one of the Deschamps children modelled for the poster. The Meuse departmental archives separately identify the daughter Gilberte and correct a later book that misnames the daughter linked to a proposed marriage with Mucha.^[11] Those biographical records belong to the patron's household; they should not be converted into an identification of the anonymous advertising figure.

Dating this page's reproduction

The inherited local file has no documented source impression. Because the brand has an earlier and a later Mucha entry, the phrase Bleu Deschamps alone cannot settle its year. The BnF's En vente ici title and the previously recorded local lettering make its 1903 notice relevant, but the two designs and later material variants call for a more careful label than an unqualified “designed in 1903.” An archival copy, publication record or detailed catalogue collation would be needed to assign the exact issue.

For now the firm, product type, two-design chronology and 1903 deposited lithograph are securely distinguishable. The advertisement's direct sales phrase still gives the reader a clear way to understand the work: it makes the art attractive enough to hold attention while giving a precise instruction about purchase. That combination explains why a practical laundry additive could support one of Mucha's memorable commercial images.

Watch: Alphonse Mucha

Follow Mucha’s work from Art Nouveau Paris to his later Czech projects.

Alphonse Mucha: Plongez dans l’Art nouveau !

Grand Palais

A French museum introduction to Mucha’s Art Nouveau years, poster work and decorative language.

Watch on YouTube

▶01 · Art Nouveau overviewAlphonse Mucha: Plongez dans l’Art nouveau !Grand Palais▶02 · Paris and designAlphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau in ParijsKunstmuseum Den Haag▶03 · Prague and the Slav EpicPrague’s Art Nouveau, Mucha, and the Slav EpicRick Steves Classroom Europe

Frequently Asked Questions

References

1. Bibliothèque nationale de France, FRBNF40467733, Bleu Deschamps. En vente ici, colour lithograph, Champenois, [DL 1903], Rennert and Weill no. 85. Catalogue.
2. Mucem, Deschamps Frères advertising card, inventory 1995.1.1748.9; transcribed product list and Meuse addresses. Collection record.
3. Jack Rennert and Alain Weill, Alphonse Mucha: The Complete Posters and Panels (1984), contents listing separate 1897 and 1903 Bleu Deschamps entries. Bibliographic listing.
4. Musée barrois / Meuse Grand Sud, May 2022 “Work of the Month,” Freund-Deschamps and the Deschamps Frères works. Museum text.
5. Université de Lille, study of Charles Freund-Deschamps and the Musée barrois, p. 151, with a qualified caption for a museum Bleu Deschamps object. PDF.
6. Gazette Drouot, Bleu Deschamps 1903 calendar panel, lot 39, quoting Rennert and Weill on the second design. Catalogue record.
7. Gazette Drouot / Ader, black-chalk Bleu Deschamps study, lot 12, circa 1896–97, with later 1898 dedication. Catalogue record.
8. Delon-Hoebanx, sale catalogue, 14 November 2018, lot 105, lithographed metal use of the 1897 poster. PDF.
9. Gazette Drouot, 1903 Bleu Deschamps Ages of Life calendar panels, lot 38. Catalogue record.
10. Gazette Drouot, lot 136, Charles Freund-Deschamps's copy of Documents décoratifs and an accompanying 1904 photographic reproduction dedicated to Madame Freund-Deschamps. Catalogue record.
11. Archives départementales de la Meuse, État des sources: Eve Marie Claire “Gilberte” Freund-Deschamps (March 2023), p. 1, identifying Gilberte and correcting a later family's biographical account. PDF.

More MUCHA Artworks

Gismonda

JOB poster

Zodiac

The Seasons (series)

Medea

Le Pater

Slavia insurance poster

Apotheosis of the Slavs