Vintage Poster Archives
Cappiello JOB Cigarettes 1912 | Vintage Advertising Poster
Cappiello JOB Cigarettes 1912 | Vintage Advertising Poster
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A stout bearded man in white robes and a voluminous white turban sinks into a heap of crimson cushions, a lit cigarette held loosely between his fingers, a curl of grey smoke rising above him against a deep maroon ground. At the foot of the composition the JOB logotype, sage green block capitals, the O replaced by a lozenge, anchors one of the most recognised marks in French commercial printing. At the top, 'CIGARETTES' in matching widely-spaced caps.
Designed by Leonetto Cappiello (1875–1942) in 1912 and printed by Pierre Vercasson in Paris, this poster sits in the heart of Cappiello's most productive period. Having signed his first contract with Vercasson in 1900, Cappiello spent the following two decades producing bold, single-image posters that broke decisively with the detailed ornamentation of his Art Nouveau predecessors. Where Mucha and Chéret filled the picture plane with surface decoration, Cappiello cleared it: one figure, one product, one instant of recognition. The JOB commission, with its white-on-crimson contrast and the contented half-smile of the turbaned smoker, is among the most anthologised works of that approach, having appeared in poster-art histories, museum collections, and auction catalogues continuously since its first printing.
This is a reproduction of the 1912 design, printed on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper using pigment-based archival inks, restored from archival reference material.
Draws collectors of early French commercial art and those who follow Cappiello's broader output; sits well alongside Belle Époque advertising prints in a study or along a gallery corridor.
