?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
PLINIO CODOGNATO (1878-1940) CICLI FIAT. Circa 1910. 78x57 inches. Chappuis, Bologna. Condition B: restored losses in bottom right corner, in margins and along vertical and horizontal folds; creases, wrinkles and restoration in image. After early training as a painter, Codognato dedicated himself to advertising illustration. In 1904 he gained recognition with his design for the Verona Horse Fair and for the next thirty-five years he designed one hundred and fifty posters. His style ranged from humorous images, comparable to works by Cappiello and Mauzan, to near-Futurist images of speeding cars and majestic automobiles. He was also closely associated with Fiat, for whom he designed a number of impressive images. This exceptional allegory is open to interpretation, but can be understood as showing Mercury attaching his own wings to a bicycle. Regardless of its meaning, it is an extremely rare image, and a magnificent example of the realistic way that Italian graphic designers could combine classical allegories into contemporary advertising without becoming kitschy. Manifesto 83.
