E & A Mele/Eleganza Novita
Artist
Enrico Sacchetti
Printer
Off. G. Ricordi & Co. Milano
Date1914
MediumStone Lithography
Dimensions81 x 58 1/4 in. (205.7 x 148 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LineGift of Anonymous Donor
Object numberPH.6542
DescriptionThe brothers Emiddio and Alfonso Mele founded their store in Naples in 1889, and modeled it on the grand new deparment stores of Paris and London. They offered fashion and luxury goods aimed at the expanding middle class and hired the leading artists and designers of their day to create posters and advertisments that set a new standard in modern Italian graphic design. They also established a relationship with the Ricordi print shop in Milan, known for its advanced techological approach to the medium. Here, a Black manservant presents an elegantly dressed man with the new clothing from a box labelled with the Mele name. And yet the company slogan below them, "Massimo Buon Mercato" (Extremely Inexpensive) indicates that such an image was largely intended to be aspirational. Sachetti was an Italian caricaturist and illustrator who had collaborated with Marinetti, the father of Futurism, in Paris before World War !, producing illustrations for the magazine Poesia. At the outbreak of war, he returned to Italy, where he began working as a propaganda artist and designer of posters and postcards.On View
Not on view
