Affiche van boekhandel Adolphe Obez te Douai 1839 - 1855

This is an advert made in the 19th century by Henri Louis Laporte for the Adolphe Obez bookshop in Douai, France. The poster’s design creates meaning through a combination of text, images, and visual codes. Note how the illustration of the shopfront, with its bustling crowd of customers, conveys a sense of commercial activity and public engagement with literature. The surrounding architectural vignettes lend an air of civic pride and cultural importance to the bookshop's location. Such advertisements reveal much about the burgeoning print culture of the 19th century, with its increasing literacy rates and expanding market for books and periodicals. It is a material artifact reflecting the economic structures and cultural values of its time. To understand it better, scholars consult archival materials like trade directories, publishers' records, and period newspapers. These sources provide a richer picture of the social and institutional contexts in which such images circulated, reminding us that art always exists within specific social and institutional frameworks.