Description
Moët & Chandon is the world’s largest champagne brand, founded in 1743 by Claude Moët, a wine trader in Epernay, France. His grandson, Jean Rémy Moët, turned the company into one of the world’s leading luxury brands in the early decades of the 19th century. Upon retiring in 1832 and turning over the company to his son Victor Moët and son-in-law Pierre-Gabriel Chandon de Briailles, the company was renamed Moët et Chandon. In the 1970s and ’80s, it merged with Hennessey and Louis Vuitton into the luxury goods conglomerate LMVH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey). Moët & Chandon has 2,800 acres of vineyards and produces about 28 million bottles of champagne a year.
Imprimerie B. Arnaud was a French printing firm, specializing in advertising and commercial printing and banknotes. Benoît Arnaud (1823-1903) established an intaglio printing and lithography atelier in Lyon in 1856. The company rapidly expanded over the next few decades and in the 1880s had representatives in Paris and Marseille. The press was especially known for its work with major international brands such as hotels, Benedictine Liqueur, Maison Moët & Chandon, and the French food company Chicorée Leroux, producing labels, advertising cards, posters, and fancy letterheads. In 1898, Imprimerie B. Arnaud relocated from Lyon to Villeurbanne to build a large new factory that soon employed 300 people. After Arnaud’s death in 1903, his nephew Rodolphe took over operations and modernized the firm, introducing newer lithographic methods such as offset printing. As the market for printing changed, the company developed other specialties, such as printing banknotes and checkbooks. It remained one of the largest printing operations in France until its closure in the early 1990s.
Full publication information: Imp. B. Arnaud-Lyon-Paris.
Condition: Print generally very good, recently professionally cleaned and deacidified with only minor remaining toning and wear. Frame good with the usual overall wear, shrinkage, restored abrasions.
References:
“Arnaud.” Dictionnaire des imprimeurs-lithographes du XIXe siècle. http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/imprimeurs/dictionnaire?page=2 (1 March 2018).
Gennuso, Emanuela. “Imprimerie Arnaud.” Lerize+. 2015. http://lerizeplus.villeurbanne.fr/arkotheque/client/am_lerize/encyclopedie/fiche.php?ref=33 (1 March 2018).
“L’Imprimerie Arnaud — Une Histoire en Lettres Capitales.” Viva Interactif. 27 April 2016. http://www.viva-interactif.com/l_imprimerie_arnaud_une_histoire_en_lettres_capitales_villeurbanne_mai2016.html (1 March 2018).
“Moët & Chandon.” Wikipedia. 29 January 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo%C3%ABt_%26_Chandon (1 March 2018).
