PLM Agenda Almanac

Almanac packs have the months of the year instead of court cards. Depending on the style and country, it can start in May or January, but generally there is a season per suit.

This is the set of court cards for our PLM Agenda, featuring the designs by Jean Raoul Chaurand-Naurac for the 1926 Paris-Lyons-Mediteranean Rail Line (Compagnie des Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée):

Here they are as a slideshow, showing the smart set enjoying their Art Deco leisure. You will notice that we have used our Timon Schroeter pattern for the cosmopolitan aspect of the pictures.

And here is the complete pack.

As you can see we have used for the back an edited version of a travel poster of Lac d’Annecy commissioned by PLM from Roger Broders, and for Fool cards the elegant livery of the Compagnie itself.

Absent a time machine, you won't get closer to the Golden Age of Rail than spending an afternoon at Bridge with our PLM Agenda pack. You can buy a copy printed on demand at Make Playing Cards here.

Agendas in General

Though no longer much in vogue, there was a time when people's lives revolved around agendas,  these calendars that doubled as diaries, timetables, atlases, sports guides, fashion magazines of sorts.*

They were enormously popular, and many emerging artistic movements promulgated their artworks or poetry through almanacs, as a raising money and awareness.

We have made a number of almanac packs as a way of evoking the era of the Agenda, and will explore these in coming posts.

The PLM

The PLM Was famous for employing the best writests and artists for their Agendas, and they are much sought after by collectors of at and belles lettres as much as by travel entusiasts. This is what Wikipedia says:

Established on 3 July 1857, the PLM grew between 1858 and 1862 from the amalgamation of the earlier Paris–Lyon and Lyon–Méditerranée companies, as well as subsequently incorporating a number of smaller railways. The PLM operated chiefly in the Southeast of France, with a main line which connected Paris to the French Riviera by way of Dijon, Lyon and Marseille. The company was also the operator of railways in Algeria.

The PLM was absorbed in 1938 into the majority state-owned Société nationale des chemins de fer français, and its network became the southeastern region of the SNCF.

Jean Raoul Chaurand-Naurac

Chaurand-Naurac was a Lyons phalanstairiste painter and designer, chiefly remembered now for his colouful sports posters. There is an excellent account at Olympedia of his life and work.

An excerpt:

Jean Raoul Chaurand-Naurac was a painter, graphic artist and illustrator. He mostly worked as a designer of posters and advertising graphics. He created many travel advertisements, including some for the Pullman service. After completing his studies in Lyon and Paris, Chaurand-Naurac lived in phalanstères, which are socio-utopian production and living communities. His motifs were genre scenes with horses, but also landscapes, portraits and flowers, which he depicted in oil, pastel and watercolor. Initially, he was influenced by Cubism and Fauvism, and later strongly by the Italian Futurists.

Roger Broders

Broders was a Parisian graphic designer and illustrator now best remembered for the travel posters that the PLM commissioned from him throughout the 1920s and 1930s

Wikipedia says:

The Paris Lyon Mediteranée Company (PLM), a railway, commissioned Broders' poster art, sponsoring his travel so he could visit the subjects of his work. From 1922 to 1932, Broders fully dedicated himself to poster art, though overall he produced fewer than 100 posters. Lithographs of Broders' travel posters are still available commercially. See for instance Christie's London Ski Sale on 21 January 2010. Others are shown in the book about Railway Posters, published in Munich in 2011 and listed below.

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*for example, the 1926 PLM Agenda has these contents

I. L'INVITATION AU VOYAGE par M. HENRY BORDEAUX, de l'Académie française (dessins de M. Jean Julien)

II. QUAND ON PART POUR LA CORSE SAVOIR CE QUE L'ON DÉSIRE par M. PIERRE BOxARDI (reproductions photographiques)

III. LA VILLE DE SAINT FRANÇOIS par M. GABRIEL FAURE (reproductions photographiques)

IV. A UNE BELLE VOYAGEUSE QUI NE CONNAIT PAS LYON 19 par M. HENRI BÉrAuD (reproductions photographiques)

V. SOLUTRE-LES-OS Station préhistorique de la Montagne mâconnaise par M. GEORGES ROZET (d'après aquarelles de M. H. Hugrel et reproductions photographiques)

VI. VERS L'ÉTRANGE VILLE DU PUY-EN-VELAY par M. C. GANDILHON GENS-D'ArMes (reproductions photographiques)

VII. STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ VALVINS ET LA FORÊT DE FONTAINEBLEAU par M. EDoUARD DUJARDIN (reproductions photographiques)

VIII. DANS LES NEIGES DU BRIANÇONNAIS Cinéma et Sports d'hiver par M. RENÉ-JEANNE (reproductions photographiques)

IX. LA LÉGENDE DE NOTRE-DAME-DE-CONSOLATION par M. GABRIEL VOLLAND (dessins de M. J. Touchet)

X. LA COTE D'AZUR ET LES PEINTRES par M. PIERRE BorEL (reproductions photographiques)

XI. CASANOVA A GRENOBLE par M. RAOUL VIZE (reproductions photographiques)

XII. LES BAUX, ROYAUME DE LA PIERRE par M. F. DE HErAIN (reproductions photographiques)

XIII. LE PETIT JARDIN par M. PAUL BoUrDIN (dessins de M. Roger Broders) CARNET DES MOIS MEMENTO DU TOURISTE

translated

I. INVITATION TO TRAVEL by Mr. HENRY BORDEAUX, of the French Academy (drawings by Mr. Jean Julien)

II. WHEN ONE LEAVES FOR CORSICA, KNOW WHAT ONE DESIRES by Mr. PIERRE BOXARDI (photographic reproductions)

III. THE CITY OF SAINT FRANÇOIS by Mr. GABRIEL FAURE (photographic reproductions)

IV. TO A BEAUTIFUL TRAVELER WHO DOES NOT KNOW LYON by Mr. HENRI BÉRAUD (photographic reproductions)

V. SOLUTRE-LES-OS Prehistoric Site of the Mâconnais Mountains by Mr. GEORGES ROZET (after watercolors by Mr. H. Hugrel and photographic reproductions)

VI. TOWARDS THE STRANGE CITY OF LE PUY-EN-VELAY by M. C. GANDILHON GENS-D'ArMes (photographic reproductions)

VII. STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ VALVINS AND THE FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU by M. EDOUARD DUJARDIN (photographic reproductions)

VIII. IN THE SNOW OF THE BRIANÇONNAIS Cinema and Winter Sports by M. RENÉ-JEANNE (photographic reproductions)

IX. THE LEGEND OF OUR LADY OF CONSOLATION by M. GABRIEL VOLLAND (drawings by M. J. Touchet)

X. THE FRENCH RIVIERA AND THE PAINTERS by M. PIERRE BOREL (photographic reproductions)

XI. CASANOVA IN GRENOBLE by M. RAOUL VIZE (photographic reproductions)

XII. LES BAUX, KINGDOM OF STONE by M. F. DE HERAIN (photographic reproductions)

XIII. THE LITTLE GARDEN by M. PAUL BOURDIN (drawings by M. Roger Broders) TOURIST'S MONTHLY NOTEBOOK