Vintage Poster Archives
Cappiello Cirio Tomatoes 1921 | Vintage Advertising Poster
Cappiello Cirio Tomatoes 1921 | Vintage Advertising Poster
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A woman in a red-and-white candy-stripe skirt rises from an open tin of Cirio Peeled Tomatoes, holding aloft cascading branches of plum tomatoes and green foliage against a deep, flat navy blue ground. A golden-ochre sash billows behind her. The composition is the essence of Cappiello's method: one vivid figure, one unambiguous product, one saturated ground. 'Ask for CIRIO TOMATOES' runs across the top in bold white capitals; 'Finest Quality' and 'Best Value' anchor the lower corners. The design is at once festive and spare.
Leonetto Cappiello (1875–1942) designed this lithograph for the Italian canning company Cirio in 1921, printed by the Paris house Devambez. Cirio, founded in Turin in 1856 by Francesco Cirio, had by the early twentieth century become a major European brand, exporting canned tomatoes, vegetables and fruits across the continent. The English-language text on this version confirms it was produced for export markets, where the Cirio name was well established by the 1910s. The Cappiello Catalogue Raisonné records the design under Devambez reference 5052; the V&A holds a related impression dated 1923 (accession E.86-1923). Cappiello approached this commission, as he did all his food-brand work, by finding the single gesture that fuses product and personality: here, the woman does not merely hold the tomatoes, she is born from the tin that contains them.
This archival print is reproduced via the giclée process on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper using pigment-based inks. The design sits naturally in a kitchen, dining room or any space where early-twentieth-century Italian commercial art is welcome.
