Ontwerp voor een advertentie voor Sumatra sigaren en een kader met eenden 1884 - 1952

This is Reinier Willem Petrus de Vries’s design for a Sumatra cigar advert, made at some unknown time, using what looks like gouache or tempera on paper. The colour palette here is a muted, earthy affair, all creams, browns, and yellows, which gives the piece a sense of understated elegance. The paint is applied in flat, opaque layers, but if you look closely, you can see the marks of the brush. It's like de Vries is letting us in on the secret of how the image was constructed. I'm really drawn to how de Vries balances precision with fluidity, especially in the swirl decorations around the cigar. It's a dance between control and chance that reminds me of the work of Hilma af Klint, who also mixed commercial work with an interest in abstraction and the occult. For me, this piece isn't just about selling cigars, it’s a reminder that art is always a conversation, an exchange of ideas across time and space.