Vintage Poster Archives
Cappiello Anisette Marie Brizard 1925 | Vintage Advertising Poster
Cappiello Anisette Marie Brizard 1925 | Vintage Advertising Poster
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A woman in an enormous crimson ball gown fills the composition entirely, her silhouette ballooning outward in folds of deep red adorned with swirling ivory plume motifs, a voluminous feathered headdress of red and black ostrich plumes rising above her tilted head. She hovers against a flat jet-black ground, tiny pale-slippered feet just visible at the hem. At the foot of the poster, cadmium-yellow slab-serif lettering announces the brand: ANISETTE above the larger MARIE BRIZARD. No background, no setting, only the figure, the blackness, and the colour. Cappiello signed and dated it 1925; the printer's imprint at the lower margin reads H. Chachoin & Cie, Marseille.
Designed by Leonetto Cappiello (1875–1942) for Marie Brizard, the Bordeaux anisette house founded in 1755, this poster belongs to Cappiello's mature period, when his signature method, an isolated figure on pure black, drawn with loose gestural brushwork, was fully established. The Cappiello/Rennert catalogue records this design as number 461 (var), with both a 1925 Marseille printing and a later 1928 Devambez, Paris edition known. The present source corresponds to the 1925 H. Chachoin printing. Cappiello drew on the Bourbon baroque character of the Marie Brizard brand, its long history, its Andalusian aniseed ingredient, its air of 18th-century luxury, and turned it into a figure of pure theatrical excess.
The composition sits at the hinge between late Belle Époque illustrative freedom and the flattened graphic economy that would define Art Deco advertising. The brushwork is gestural and warm; the structure is bold and modern. Both tendencies are present, and neither wins.
Produced as a fine art archival print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper using pigment-based inks. Restored from an archival source and faithful to the original lithograph's colour and proportion. Resonates with anyone drawn to 1920s French graphic design, the history of aperitif and liqueur advertising, or Cappiello's particular place at the origin of modern poster art.
