Sarah Bernhardt as Melisande

Paul Berthon was a French poster artist and lithographer working in the Art Nouveau style during the 1890s and early 1900s. His compositions combined flowing, organic forms with carefully balanced typography, creating promotional images for theatrical productions, beverages, and cultural events in Paris. Berthon's technical mastery of color lithography and his refined decorative sensibility placed his work among the most commercially successful and aesthetically accomplished poster designs of the Belle Époque period.