Victoria Fahrrad-Werke poster – Vintage Bicycle Poster 1900

Victoria Fahrrad-Werke poster – Vintage Bicycle Poster – 1900

Between 1890 and 1900 many European countries and the United States were captivated by the new Art Nouveau movement. The new art form was one of the first to influence art, product design, architecture and decorative arts internationally. By 1900, the Jugendstil art movement, as Art Nouveau was known in Germany, was coming to an end. It was about to be replaced by the even more popular art deco movement. The Victoria Fahrrad-Werke poster on this listing was caught right in the middle of the change in a period known as the fin de siécle era. The vintage bicycle poster was illustrated and painted by German artist and poster designer Fritz Rehm.

Rehm’s beautiful, art nouveau image depicts an elegantly-dressed fraulein taking a relaxing cycle ride among the perfectly cultivated trees. There’s no special cycling gear being worn here. The young redhead is wearing a long black coat dressed complimented with a straw hat embellished with a black and white feather. She appears to be keeping an eye on the dog who is running alongside her.

The Victoria Cycles poster… a poster with a hidden message!

At first glance, the scene looks wholesome and idyllic until you realise that the German lady isn’t smiling. We’ll make no comment about that maybe being a national trait and move right along! Instead, the fraulein has quite a stern, look on her face. The dog has its mouth open as if he’s panting for air, as it begins to struggle to keep up with the cyclist.

In the 1880s, one of Victoria Fahrradwerke’s biggest competitors was Express Werke AG. Their logo depicted a white greyhound in an almost identical running position to the wolfhound seen here. The poster’s image suggests that the cyclist on the Victoria Fahrrad-Werke bike, is determined to, at the very least, compete with or overtake the flagging dog (being a metaphor for Express Werke AG). Or, even run the old dog to the point of collapse or into the ground.

The design provides a message to the public, who at that time would know the competitor logo, that Victoria Fahrrad-werke were at the very least on level terms with Express-Werke. Perhaps more importantly the poster is a direct message to Express Werke AG, to say we’re coming for you!

It would appear that the owners of the Victoria Bicycle works were not particularly dog-lovers. According to an article by Matthias Murko on the Google Arts and Culture website a tale survives from those early days that suggests that with the sale of each new bicycle, Victoria would give purchasers a bagful of pea-sized firecrackers to scare off aggressive stray dogs.

The Victoria Fahrrad-Werke company

By the 1890s the cycle trade was booming. The city of Coventry, England could boast of no less than 248 bicycle manufacturers which employed nearly 40,000 workers. At that time Coventry had developed the largest bicycle industry in the world. Coventry became the model for other European countries to follow, and follow they did. St Etienne was to France what Coventry was to Britain. In Germany, it was Nürnberg.

Back in 1886, Carl Marschütz, a bicycle pioneer from Neumarkt, Germany, founded the German city’s first velocipede manufacturing business. The company was Herkules-Werke. It was quickly followed by Victoria Cycles and then Triumph, Premier, Mars, Sirius and more. The competition between the various companies saw the bicycle evolve from an expensive, luxury item for the wealthy into an affordable mode of transport available to most people in society. The bicycle’s phenomenal popularity saw the industry grow quickly, and by 1897, some 50,000 bikes, a quarter of all bicycles produced in Germany, came from Nuremberg.

The Victoria Bicycle Works was set up in Nuremberg in 1886, the same year as Hercules Cycles. It was founded by two pioneers of the bicycle industry Max Frankenburg and Max Ottenstein. They started out in a small workshop and twenty employees making high-wheelers in the style of the British Penny Farthing. Within just a few years the pair were designing and building their first low-wheeled or “Safety bikes”.

Sales were good and with it came the need to relocate to larger premises. Victoria Fahrrad-Werke moved to a large site on Ludwig-Feuerbach-Strasse, which would remain the firm’s headquarters for 50 years. They even built a velodrome opposite their new factory. The article by Matthias Murko describes the Victoria Velodrome as a vast pillarless hall that offered a riding area of more than 2,300 square meters, where people could learn how to ride a high-wheeler. To encourage the public, the velodrome included a restaurant, a reading room, aa showroom featuring the latest Victoria bike models and a variety of courses and events. An electrically powered mechanical band called an “Orchestrion” provided background music. Subscriptions to use the Velodrome cost 6 marks a year, and anyone who bought a bike from Victoria got free cycle lessons. The arrival of the safety bike meant anyone could easily learn to ride. The need for bike schools became redundant and by 1905 the hall had been demoted to storage space.

In 1901, the company also introduced their first Victoria car in 1900 and stopped production in 1909. The name was revived in 1955 for the production of the Spatz or “Sparrow” car. The company made no other cars after 1957. Unusually for a bicycle manufacturing company, Victoria didn’t produce their first motorbike until after their first car. The first Victoria motorcycle arrived in 1904 and remained successful. In 1958, the company merged with DKW and Express Werke AG, becoming Zweirad Union, which continued the Victoria name for mopeds such as the Vicky and motor scooters. In 1966 Hercules took over Zweirad Union and terminated Victoria production.