Menu voor de maaltijd van de Nederlandsche Maatschappij tot bevordering der Geneeskunst before 1917

This menu was made in 1915 for the Dutch Society for the Advancement of Medicine, likely using a lithographic process. You can see the texture of the paper itself, now aged, and the monochromatic ink, which would have been efficiently applied using a printing press. The design is charmingly anachronistic: a classical figure converses with a woman in a medieval-looking gown, all set against the skyline of Amsterdam. The scene, with its giraffe and monkeys, is a nod to Artis, the Amsterdam zoo, where the meal took place. What’s most striking is the contrast between the elite company being addressed, and the relatively workaday means of production. Lithography allowed for mass production of printed materials, making this kind of imagery available to a broad public. It also shows that the advancement of medicine was a shared aspiration, not just the domain of an exclusive club.