Lot 458: Martini Vermouth. 1921.

Martini Vermouth. 1921.A current television commercial for Guinness stout concludes with the statement "It's alive inside" after we've been treated to a Cirque-de-Soleil-worthy amount of acrobatics intended to demonstrate the gustatory experience to be had upon drinking their beer. Muggiani, however, appears to have out-personified them by nearly ninety years with this magnificent androgyne roman candle that he's unleashed in the name of Martini rosso vermouth. Known as Martini & Rossi in the United States, the Turin distillery was founded in 1863 by Italian businessmen Alessandro Martini, Luigi Rossi-the inventor of a very subtle vermouth-and Sola. Though the quality of their product was never in question, perhaps the most innovative policy the company executed was exporting their vermouth worldwide almost from its inception. Just thirty years after its creation Martini was being consumed in the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, Portugal, Belgium and Egypt, to name but a few countries. Muggiani was a self-taught painter whose heyday arrived during the 1920s and '30s, during which time he executed some fifty designs. His graphics, nearly always involving caricatures, are at times reminiscent of Cappiello, while others are sometimes rather Cubist in nature.
GIORGIO MUGGIANI (1887-1938)

39 3/8 x 55 in./100 x 139.8 cm

1921.0

B+/ Slight tears at folds and edges.

PRINTER
Moneta, Milano