Palais De Glace
- Object:
Poster
- Place of origin:
France (made)
- Date:
1893-5 (Made)
- Artist/Maker:
Cheret, Jules, born 1836 - died 1932 (artist)
- Materials and Techniques:
Colour lithograph on paper
- Museum number:
E.530-2000
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level C, case MB2F, shelf DR79, box BRITISH MUSEUM POSTERS
Ice skating was a fashionable pastime in Paris during the second half of the nineteenth century. As the sport grew in numbers, enthusiasts soon tired of unreliable natural rinks, such as the frozen lakes in the Bois de Boulogne, and, following the construction of the first artifical rink in London, the Palais de Glaces was built near the Champs Elysées in 1889.
Chéret's series of posters advertising this artifical rink show well-dressed and vivacious young men and women enjoying themsleves on the ice, underscoring both the novelty of the activity but also the fact that controlled conditions in the modern covered rink lent themselves particularly well to the sartorially-minded.
