TL;DR — Steinlen’s 1895 poster for Lait pur Stérilisé de la Vingeanne — a small girl drinking milk while three cats wait eagerly at her feet — is one of the most beloved images in all of poster art. It advertised sterilised milk, then a genuine public-health advance, and it remains Steinlen’s most reproduced design. This deep dive looks at the poster, the product, and Steinlen’s genius for the everyday.
By Found Poster · Published October 2026
The poster everyone knows
A rosy child lifts a bowl of milk; three cats look up, willing her to spill a drop. It is domestic, warm and completely without sentimentality — the cats are real animals with real appetites, not decoration. The design has been reproduced on countless prints, tins and postcards, and it is the image most people picture when they hear Steinlen’s name, even if they do not know it.
The product and the moment
The poster sold sterilised milk from the Vingeanne region. In the 1890s that was a serious matter: unsterilised milk was a major cause of infant illness, and sterilisation was a real advance in public health. Steinlen’s image sold safety and nourishment through the most disarming means possible — a healthy child and hungry cats.
It is a perfect demonstration of his method: take an ordinary domestic scene, observe it truthfully, and let the warmth do the persuading.
Steinlen and the cat
No artist is more bound to the cat than Steinlen, who kept them all his life and drew them endlessly. For the full account of his Montmartre career and his social eye, see the deep dive on his Two Cats. Here the point is his unmatched ability to make animals live on paper — the weight, the patience, the appetite of a real cat.
Where it belongs
Warm, domestic and universally liked, the Lait pur poster suits a kitchen, a café, a bistro or a family home better than almost any other Belle Époque image. It carries none of the cabaret’s edge — just the everyday tenderness that makes Steinlen the gentlest of the great Montmartre artists.
Steinlen’s cats and Montmartre scenes are catalogued individually in our archive, restored for printing. Browse Steinlen →
Frequently asked questions
What does the Lait pur poster advertise?
Sterilised milk from the Vingeanne region — in the 1890s a genuine public-health advance against infant illness. Steinlen sold it with a healthy child and three eager cats.
Why is it so famous?
It is Steinlen’s most reproduced design: warm, domestic and unsentimental, with cats observed as real animals rather than decoration.
Who was Steinlen?
The Swiss-born Montmartre artist famous for his cats and his sympathetic eye — see the deep dive on his Two Cats for the full account.
Further reading
- Steinlen’s Two Cats — the fuller account
- Posters for a French bistro
- Phillip Dennis Cate & Nancy Finlay, The Color Revolution: Color Lithography in France, 1890–1900 (Zimmerli, 1978)
Found Poster restores Belle Époque and Art Nouveau posters from museum archives into archival-quality files you print yourself. Browse the archive · How to print & frame.
