DESIGNER UNKNOWN E. & A. / MELE & CI. Circa 1910. 80 1/4x56 3/4 inches. G. Ricordi & C., Milan. Condition B+: discoloration and minor restoration along vertical and horizontal folds; minor repaired tears at edges. Two sheets. From the end of the 19th century through the beginning of the First World War, the Mele department store in Naples engaged in an advertising campaign that resulted in one of the most spectacular series of posters in history. A graphic catalog of "bourgeois realism," these posters were executed by the finest artists in the Ricordi studios; Metlicovitz, Dudovitch, Laskoff, Beltrami, Villa, Mazza and others. They all promote the high-class standards of the store by showing elegant, well-to-do people in their easy, elegant lives. In this image, a ravishing woman is having her coat altered by a dressmaker. The bright orange background serves to make the entire image, and the typography, literally spring off the paper. It has been suggested that this image is the work of Marcello Dudcovich, who designed similar images for Mele during this same period (Mele p. 110). Ricordi 41, Mele 191, Maitres 1900 p. 132, Gallo p. 132.
