Poster for noodles and pasta 1901 - 1904

Leonetto Cappiello created this poster for Ferrari pasta in Paris; though undated, it comes from the turn of the 20th century. It would have been printed lithographically: a commercial process, involving greasy inks applied to a flat stone. Cappiello worked for a wide variety of companies. Here, he’s promoting Ferrari, presumably an Italian producer, with an image designed to appeal to Parisian consumers. Note that it’s not the pasta itself that is being highlighted, but rather the lifestyle associated with it. Cappiello shows the happy bourgeoisie in their finery, rather than, say, the wheat fields of Emilia Romagna. The printing process itself is a sign of consumer culture – the poster would have been one of many, plastered on walls throughout the city, all competing for attention. This poster gives us a taste of what it must have been like to be a consumer in Paris at the time, awash in advertisements, targeted at an upwardly mobile middle class. It exemplifies how commercial art can be a window into a specific time and place.