An exceptional poster promoting the (fatal) parachute jump of Lucienne 'Cayat de Castella' Blaise, Courbet & Cie, (1914)

153 x 117,5 cm

"Ville de Bruxelles - Gd. meeting d'aviation - Les dimanche19 lundi 20 mardi 21 juillet à 3 heures de l'après midi sur l'hippodrome de Stockel - Chute dans le vide de 1000m de hauteur en parachute - Par Mme Cayat de Castella du biplan pilotépar champel".

Lucienne Cayat de Castella was a French parachutist who died on July 26, 1914, at the Stockel racecourse (near Brussels) during a demonstration flight (her parachute failed to deploy, whereas her previous attempt in Nevers on May 17 had been perfectly successful). 

She was the first woman to parachute from an airplane in 1913, at only 22 years old. That same year, she and American Giorgia 'Tiny' Broadwick (1893-1978) tested one of the models manufactured by her husband, Georges Cayat. She was attached by three leather straps under the tail of her Rob aircraft, the parachute being fixed under a wing and connected by another harness to her armpits. Her hands were wrapped in rags to protect them from injury by the cables she was gripping. Her husband, inventor of a compressed air assisted opening system, detached it at an altitude of 800 meters, when her face was barely 50 centimeters from the propeller.

It was the researcher and writer Bernard Pharisien who finally uncovered the truth. The unfortunate parachutist's true identity was in fact Lucienne Blaise, born in Saint-Benoît-sur-Seine (Aube) in 1892. For decades, the first French woman parachutist to jump from an airplane was known as 'Madame Cayat de Castella'. On May 17, 1914, she achieved a remarkable feat by parachuting from Nevers. Two years ago, the Paris-Nevers Parachuting Center paid tribute to her on the centenary of her first jump at Nevers Fourchambault Airport, which witnessed this feat in the last century. But the name of this intrepid young woman, who went down in history, turned out to be false. It had been given to her by the inventor of a parachute, Alphonse Cayat, a former actor turned inventor who gave him the pseudonym 'Cayat de Castellat'. He was known by this pseudonym. By letting people believe the parachutist was his wife, he benefited from the publicity surrounding her jumps (while also appearing a complete cad given the risks his 'wife' took). Capitalizing on the public's enthusiasm at the time for the burgeoning field of aeronautics, Cayat envisioned turning Lucienne's parachute jumps into a lucrative spectacle. Lucienne performed her jumps with the parachute invented by the former actor at air shows that attracted thousands of spectators, thus taking credit for part of her feat. The surname, which suggested a noble lineage, only added to the legend. But shortly after her exploit of May 17, 1914 in Nevers, she was killed during another jump on July 21, 1914 near Brussels. Her parachute had not opened (link).