Tuesday’s ad is for a Wissembourg Beer Jester, or King, from 1880. From the late 1800s until the 1980s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. I’ve been posting vintage European posters all last year, and will continue to do so in 2020. This poster was part of a series in which “[t]he joyful King celebrates the German way — with beer, of course!” One auction site describes the series as follows. “This poster was created by the C. Burckardt printing firm, and is part of a larger series of posters that were produced during the 1880s and 1890s. The company was based in the Alsatian town of Wissembourg, along the French border with Germany, and was also known for their cutout puppets, puzzles for children, educational charts, and religious depictions. These posters were created during a time that the Alsace region belonged to Germany, when the town was still called Weissenburg. All posters in this series have been printed via stone lithography, in multiple panels.” They claim he’s a king, but his grin says jester, to me.
