We have a real soft spot for early French posters, and Chéret is a big reason why. There is something quite incredible about holding a piece of paper that was made to fight for attention on a Paris street more than a century ago and discovering that it still does exactly that.
Jules Chéret was a lithographer as much as an artist, and that matters. He understood how colour could be layered, how lettering could become part of an image and how a poster needed to work from a distance. His theatre, entertainment and advertising posters helped move commercial printing away from notices dominated by text and towards the visual poster we recognise today.
The women who appear so often in his work — lively, theatrical and seemingly caught mid-movement — became closely associated with his style. But what we find most interesting is the printing itself. Up close, an original Chéret has a physical quality that a screen simply cannot communicate: the paper, the scale and the way lithographic colour sits on the sheet.
Chéret is also a good example of why ‘old-looking’ is not the same as original. His best-known designs have been reproduced many times. Date, printer, dimensions, paper and the particular edition all need to make sense together.
If you are coming to Chéret from film posters or later graphic design, his work can feel like opening a door into a completely different side of collecting. For us, that is part of the fun.
What to Look For When Collecting Chéret
Because his best-known images have been reproduced repeatedly, focus on whether the date, printer, dimensions and paper are all consistent with a genuine period lithograph — not just whether the picture looks right. See our authenticity guide for how we approach this in general.