December 16, 1928 · Compagnie Générale Transatlantique · Wine List (Carte des Vins)
A wine list (carte des vins) was issued separately from the food menu on first-class French Line crossings. The CGT cellar was famous: Bordeaux, Burgundies, Champagnes, fortified wines, and digestifs were served by sommeliers trained in the Paris tradition. The 1928 card likely accompanied the Île de France or one of the Paris-class liners.
The illustration is signed by Sylvain Sauvage (1888–1948), one of the most distinguished French illustrators of the Art Deco period. His witty, eighteenth-century costume-genre scenes graced numerous books, magazines, and commercial commissions through the 1920s and 1930s. The Carte des Vins motto reads: “Le bon vin de France” — “The good wine of France.”
By 1928 CGT had entered the Roaring Twenties at full force. The company’s S.S. Paris (1921) and S.S. Île de France (1927) had introduced full Art Deco interiors to the transatlantic fleet, and the French Line had become a magnet for the artistic and literary set crossing between New York and Paris.
Visual style: Art Deco illustration of an eighteenth-century French village scene by Sylvain Sauvage.
What you receive
- Three print sizes: 8×10, 11×14, 16×20 inches (300 DPI, ready for any home printer or framing shop).
- Two versions of each size: a pure print (no added text) and a museum print (with a small caption: restaurant or ship, year, and source).
- A 1–2 page PDF with the menu’s historical context.
- One ZIP file, instantly downloadable after checkout.
About the source
This menu is preserved in the Buttolph Collection of Menus at The New York Public Library and is in the public domain in the United States. The Menu Press has curated, digitally restored, and reformatted the work for modern printing.
