Vintage Poster Archives
Pikina Picon 1934 | Robys Vintage Advertising Poster
Pikina Picon 1934 | Robys Vintage Advertising Poster
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A white ox and a red ox pull a wooden farm cart stacked with grape clusters in purple and gold, a tall Pikina bottle rising from the load against a near-black sky. The foreground is a flat band of warm cadmium yellow; at the base, PIKINA in bold dark-brown condensed capitals, then PICON & Cie and APERITIF AUX VINS DE FRANCE in blue serif type below. Robys (Robert Wolff, 1916–1995) signed the composition lower right and dated it 1934.
Picon & Cie launched Pikina in 1931 as a wine-based aperitif lighter than the original Amer Picon, targeting a wider French family market. The poster was printed by Affiches Stentor via the Etablissements Marboeuf press in Paris. Robys placed the composition squarely in the Cappiello tradition: a single energetic image, the two oxen rendered with the same confident outline and saturated palette he applied to brands from Adelshoffen beer to Kina Lillet across the interwar decade. The ox-and-vineyard motif anchored Pikina in French agricultural heritage, communicating natural ingredients in an aperitif market already crowded with competing claims.
The poster is documented in the collection of Galerie 1 2 3, Paris, and in the Bibliotheques specialisees de Paris, where a copy is held under the title Pikina, Picon & Cie, aperitif aux vins de France. A second edition appeared in 1936, consistent with the Galerie 1 2 3 catalogue.
Reproduced as a fine art archival print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper, with pigment inks that preserve the depth of the black ground, the warmth of the amber foreground, and the distinction between the purple and golden grape varieties. At home in a kitchen, dining room, or wine bar, and in any space where French interwar graphic advertising is taken seriously.
