May 21, 2009 - Sale 2181

Sale 2181 - Lot 15

Price Realized: $ 2,640
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,000
CARL O. KOCH (DATES UNKNOWN) DESNOLI.
27 1/2x36 1/2 inches, 93x70 cm. Rotophot, Berlin.
Condition B+: repaired tears in margins and image; restoration along vertical and horizontal folds.
Cigarette companies were among the biggest poster advertisers in pre-war Germany. Many great artists designed images promoting a wide assortment of cigarette brands, and many exceptional Sachs-Plakat posters resulted from this marriage of talent and product. It is no wonder that smaller brands of cigarettes wanted to be a part of this larger success. No information remains on the Desnoli Cigarette Company, but in their day they employed an unknown artist who was familiar with the work emerging from Berlin's Hollerbaum & Schmidt printing house. The resulting image, promoting three different kinds of cigarettes produced by the company, is a calm, graphic still life. It is interesting to note that the smoke issuing from the cigarettes does not take on a decorative element, as it would have in the Art Nouveau era.