Ernest Montaut (1879-1909) died tragically young, but he lived through the early period of heroic motor cars. What made his artwork so special was the way in which he captured the image of speed. He began in 1897 to chronicle the racing events in France. His drew directly on to stone from which each print was made. Then followed the extensive hand coloured process using several stencils elaborately cut for each image, one for each colour. A process known as pochoir. As demand grew, he took on more staff eventually employing about a dozen to do the colouring alone. In 1910 ‘Dix Ans de Course 1897-1907’ was published to celebrate the finest images published by Montaut. It was issued a year after his death. These reduced size images are produced using the same methods. The last known image produced by the workshop was in 1913. Automobile Quarterly (Summer 1962) ‘Montaut & Atelier’ pp. 196-213; Clendinin, Dorothy (1976) ‘Lively Legacy. The first automotive prints for the first automotive enthusiasts’ in ‘Road & Track’ pp. 70-73; Helck, Peter ‘Car Classics’; ‘Collection de L’Atelier Montaut-Mabileau’ (1992) Musee de La Colline de L’Automobile; Tubbs, Douglas B. (1978) ‘Art and the Automobile’.