Anisette Marie Brizard L’éternelle Favorite 1928

Leonetto Cappiello’s striking advertisement poster features a lady elegantly dressed in a flamboyant red dress, decorated with abstract floral motifs, promoting Anisette Marie Brizard. The rose-like motifs across the dress echo the historical and symbolic significance of flowers in art. The rose, often associated with Venus, goddess of love, beauty, and desire, is a symbol that transcends time. In medieval art, roses signified the Virgin Mary. Cappiello’s abstraction, however, modernizes this, evoking more generally ideas of beauty and femininity. The figure’s elaborate attire and haughty posture can be traced to the recurring image of powerful women throughout art history, often signaling social status. Here, the dress swells with floral flourishes, reminiscent of Botticelli's Flora, scattering flowers and spring; an eternal motif that, like the promise of the drink, resurfaces and is forever reborn. Thus, Cappiello's work is not merely an advertisement. It is a testament to the cyclical return and reinvention of symbols that continue to charm and beguile us.