Lait Pur de la Vingeanne Stérilisé

The word that sold this milk is "sterilised". Contaminated milk was blamed for many infant deaths in 1890s France, and in 1894, around the time Steinlen made this poster, a doctor in the Normandy port of Fécamp, Léon Dufour, opened the first Goutte de lait, a dispensary handing out sterilised milk for babies. A dairy that could promise safe milk had something to advertise.

The dairy was Quillot Frères at Montigny-sur-Vingeanne in Burgundy, and its owner, Maurice Quillot, was Steinlen's friend. The girl in the red dress drinking from a bowl is usually identified as the artist's daughter, Colette. Three cats press in around her, a tabby, a black cat and a calico, all fixed on the milk. Steinlen, the Montmartre illustrator best remembered for the Chat Noir cabaret's black cat, printed the design as a colour lithograph more than a metre high.