Champagne Ruinart

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Champagne Ruinart by Alphonse Mucha

Champagne Ruinart was already in circulation by late 1896. The Mucha Foundation dates the colour lithograph to that year and records its appearance at a poster exhibition in Reims in November. The Bibliothèque nationale de France independently records a 1896 legal deposit for the larger format. These sources place the poster among Mucha's early commissions from F. Champenois, while the surviving records also show that it was printed in more than one size.^[1][3][4]

At a Glance

• Date1896; BnF legal deposit in 1896^[1][3]
• Mediumcolour lithograph^[1][3]
• Catalogued sheets173 × 59 cm at the Mucha Foundation; 178 × 60 cm and 88 × 31 cm in two BnF format records^[1][3][4]
• PrinterF. Champenois, Paris^[1][3][5]
• AdvertiserChampagne Ruinart Père et Fils, Rheims^[3][5]

Contents

1. What the advertisement actually says
2. One design, several catalogued formats
3. From working design to public exhibition
4. A comparison within Mucha's commercial work

What the advertisement actually says

Musée Carnavalet transcribes the principal inscription as “CHAMPAGNE / RUINART / PERE ET FILS / (RHEIMS).” The four-part wording names the drink, the firm and its city. “Rheims” is the spelling found in the contemporary print and retained, with sic, in the BnF catalogue; it need not be silently modernised to “Reims” when quoting the poster. Carnavalet also records a printed Mucha signature and a printer's line for F. Champenois, Paris. Those small pieces of lettering matter: they identify the maker and producer of a commercial object, rather than just the decorative style in which it was drawn.^[3][5]

Carnavalet describes a long-haired woman holding a champagne coupe. The raised glass connects the human figure to the advertised wine without showing a bottle or narrating a particular occasion. The Foundation calls the work one of Mucha's earliest commissions from Champenois. In that context, its unusually tall field is practical as well as ornamental: a large name can be read from a distance, while the figure gives the narrow sheet a continuous vertical movement. The picture invites a slower look, but its words keep returning the viewer to a named producer and product.^[1][5]

The figure can suggest festivity, though none of these object records identifies her as a named performer or records a specific event she represents. The historical claim that can be made securely is narrower and more useful: a printer and an advertiser commissioned a lithographic poster, and the printed composition combines the wine's name with a person holding a glass.^[1][3][5]

The Union des Maisons de Champagne's historical chronology names André Ruinart as the person who commissioned a poster from Mucha in 1896. It describes the result as the artist's first advertisement for a champagne house.^[9] Ruinart's own later account also credits André with commissioning its first advertisement from him.^[10] These are retrospective accounts from the trade body and client, not the original agreement or a dated printer's order. They give the advertiser a more precise human role without establishing the fee, approved design or first day of distribution.

One design, several catalogued formats

The dimensions attached to Champagne Ruinart depend on the institution and the object described. The Foundation lists 173 × 59 cm; Carnavalet gives 175 × 59 cm for its lithograph, with a larger measurement for the mount. The BnF catalogues a 178 × 60 cm format and links it explicitly to another record for an 88 × 31 cm format. The smaller BnF entry calls itself a format variant of the larger poster and cites a separate Rennert and Weill number, 16-1. Its date is bracketed 1896, whereas the larger record specifies legal deposit in 1896. These are catalogue statements about physical print formats, not evidence that Mucha drew a wholly new composition for each size.^[1][3][4][5]

A Japanese exhibition checklist adds a fifth physical measurement: its entry for a Miura Collection impression at Kawasaki Civic Museum gives 176.8 × 60.0 cm and dates the poster 1896. This is close to the larger French records, but it remains a measurement of that catalogued impression. The centimetres should not be flattened into one supposedly universal sheet size. Conversely, different measurements alone cannot establish an edition sequence, a printing order or the original number of copies.^[6]

Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris catalogues another held example, inventory 12470.1, as a Champenois colour lithograph measuring 174.5 × 58.5 cm, or 183 × 67 cm with its linen margins.^[11] It records an ink stamp of the Braun collection on that sheet. That stamp is a specific later collection mark, not part of the original advertising copy. The museum also describes the work as commissioned by Champagne Ruinart for posting in France in 1896; this is catalogue-level use information, not a record of an individual wall or campaign count. Its dimensions should be read with the other large-sheet measurements, without turning ordinary differences among held objects into undocumented states.

Berlin's Kunstbibliothek preserves another original under inventory 1919,440/018.^[12] Its German catalogue identifies Mucha as designer, Champenois as printer and Ruinart Père et Fils as commissioner, and measures the lithograph at 172.5 × 59.5 cm. It records a 1919 donation by Walter von zur Westen. This gives that particular poster a documented route into a public collection, distinct from the Braun-marked Paris sheet and from the BnF's holdings. The 1919 number is an accession context, not a second date for Mucha's design; the museum dates production to 1896. Comparing the records broadens the known survival of large impressions without proving that every museum copy shares identical margins or condition.^[11][12]

The BnF also notes that one of its large-format holdings is incomplete at the bottom. That is a condition note for a particular surviving example, not a feature of the design as issued. It helps explain why a reader comparing catalogue reproductions or transcriptions might encounter less lettering on one copy. The object records permit a distinction between a larger format, a documented smaller variant, and a damaged large copy; they do not supply a complete print history.^[3][4]

From working design to public exhibition

The Mucha Foundation holds a separate Design for Champagne Ruinart, dated about 1896. It is a 58.8 × 22.1 cm work in pencil, watercolour and gold leaf on paper. Its title and the Foundation's cross-reference connect it to the poster, while its medium and dimensions identify it as a study rather than a saleable colour lithograph. The Foundation also lists a charcoal-and-pastel Design for a champagne poster among related objects; that generic title alone is insufficient to assign it to the Ruinart commission.^[1][2]

The completed poster was included in the Exposition d'Affiches Artistiques Françaises & Étrangères Moderns & Retrospectives in Reims in November 1896, according to the Foundation. The exhibition date provides a terminus by which the poster existed and a documented public setting for it in the same city named on the sheet. It does not establish when or where individual street copies were posted. Combined with the BnF's 1896 legal-deposit date and the Japanese checklist's 1896 attribution, it makes 1896 the best-supported date for the work.^[1][3][6]

A separate Japanese exhibition list also dates Champagne Ruinart to 1896. The Sapporo list names the medium as colour lithograph but does not give a sheet measurement in its brief entry. It is a useful independent catalogue cross-check for the year, without resolving the order in which the large and small formats were printed.^[7]

The Union des Maisons de Champagne chronology records a further use in 1905: the company placed the Mucha poster on a refuge at the summit of Mont Blanc as part of a publicity campaign.^[9] That later setting shows the design continuing to serve the brand nine years after the Reims exhibition. The brief account does not say whether the mountain display used an original large sheet, a new print or another form of reproduction, so it cannot answer the BnF's format-sequence question.

A comparison within Mucha's commercial work

The JOB poster is another 1896 advertisement built around a female figure. Its subject and lettering have different jobs: a profile and curling smoke belong to the rolling paper design, while Ruinart's raised coupe and the words “Père et Fils” make this sheet specific to champagne. The comparison shows how Mucha could reuse a decorative language while adjusting gesture, typography and format to the product. The poster guide places both works within the broader commercial practice of the period.^[8]

When reading Champagne Ruinart, begin with the complete printed name and city, then the coupe and the figure. Finally, return to the edges and printer's line. Those details reveal how a work now collected as art also functioned as a precisely named advertisement, produced in at least two documented print formats and exhibited within its first recorded year.^[3][4][5]

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Frequently Asked Questions

References

1. Mucha Foundation, “Champagne Ruinart (1896),” object record and Reims exhibition note. View source.
2. Mucha Foundation, “Design for Champagne Ruinart (c. 1896),” drawing record. View source.
3. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Champagne Ruinart Père et Fils, larger-format record, legal deposit 1896. View source.
4. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Champagne Ruinart Père et Fils, 88 × 31 cm format variant. View source.
5. Musée Carnavalet / Paris Musées, Champagne Ruinart Père et Fils (Rheims), AFF1561. View source.
6. Chiba City Museum of Art, 2019 exhibition checklist, item 2-32, Miura Collection at Kawasaki Civic Museum (Japanese). View source.
7. Sapporo Art Park, exhibition list, item 67, “Champagne Ruinart,” 1896 (Japanese). View source.
8. Mucha Foundation, JOB poster (1896), comparison object. View source.
9. Union des Maisons de Champagne, historical chronology, 1896 André Ruinart commission and 1905 Mont Blanc publicity reuse. Chronology.
10. Ruinart, account of André Ruinart's 1896 commission in its artist-programme history. Company history.
11. Les Arts Décoratifs, Champagne Ruinart Père et fils. Reims, inventory 12470.1, 1896 Champenois lithograph and Braun collection stamp. Collection record.
12. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek, Champagne Ruinart, inventory 1919,440/018, 1896 lithograph, 1919 Walter von zur Westen donation and sheet dimensions (German). Collection record.

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