French National Champions ride La Francaise Diamant Bikes – Emile Georget & Emile Froil

La Française Diamant, Georget and Friol – 1910 Champions of France

Glorious early twentieth-century advertising poster for La Française Diamant, one of the great French bicycle makers of the Belle Époque. Across the top, the legend reads “Les Champions de France sur La Française Diamant”, announcing that France’s national champions race on La Française Diamant bicycles. On the track, two riders charge toward the viewer. On the left is Émile Georget, identified as “Georget (Route)”, and on the right is Émile Friol, labelled “Friol (Piste)”. Both wear the French national champion jersey, blue, white, and red, with black shorts and brown racing shoes. They ride elegant La Française Diamant machines with the firm’s crest proudly displayed on the head tube, and the crest is repeated as a large badge in the lower-left corner.

The setting is a velodrome drawn in clean bands of color: brown racing surface, bright green infield, and a simple tree line under a clear blue sky. The composition keeps the focus on the two “Émiles” and their bicycles, underlining the message that La Française dominates both road and track. The printer’s line at the bottom credits Marcial, Goffin & Cie, Paris, a noted lithographic house of the period.

La Française Diamant, founded in the 1890s, produced high-quality bicycles and later motorcycles, and backed a successful professional road team before the First World War. Georget and Friol were exactly the kind of riders that gave the brand its prestige. Émile Georget was the French national road champion in 1910 and won long-distance epics such as Bordeaux–Paris and Paris–Brest–Paris, while Émile Friol was one of the dominant sprinters of his generation, a multiple French national sprint champion, and twice a world professional sprint champion. Celebrating a road champion and a world-class track sprinter in their tricolour jerseys, this poster is a superb piece of pre-war French cycling art and a centerpiece for any cycling collection.

This poster has been archivally and professionally linen-backed.

Virtually all original vintage posters of this era were viewed as temporary advertising and were printed on very thin paper. While expensive, linen backing is a conservation method used to mount, stabilize, preserve, and protect vintage posters so they can be displayed or framed without compromising value.

This poster is an original first printing, not a reproduction.

Year: 1910
Artist: N/A
Imp: Marcial, Goffin & Cie, Paris

Size: 55.5 x 42 cm ( 21 ¾  x 16 ½  inches) – Linen Backed Archival Mounting

Posters are sold unframed. Framed images are display ideas only.

This is a one-of-a-kind item; please review the photos carefully to determine the condition.

This item is listed on multiple platforms, and availability is subject to prior sale elsewhere.