Mauzan’s fierce and embattled soldier nearly reaches off the page to proclaim to us: “Do your duty! Take out the loan!” So powerful was this image that it is considered by many to be the image of World War I. “This [poster] was to take its place in the ranks of the world’s army of exhortation—the pointing, beckoning, declaiming figures that called from everywhere to everyone for more of everything. No less compelling than his counterparts, the Italian version certainly appeared in greater numbers, and in a wider variety of shapes and sizes than the pointers and beckoners of any other country. He was hung in gigantic reproductions across the streets, posted in multiple sets on outsize hoardings, printed by the million as postcards, folders and leaflets, and reproduced in magazine and newspaper advertisements... It was an indignity that he survived: his accusing hand remained for decades, rankling in the general memory” (Rickards, p. 24).
G. Ricordi, Milano
literature: Mauzan, A072; Mauzan/Paris, frontispiece & 2; Imperial War Museum I, p. 43; Rickards, 10; Italia che Cambia, 48; PAI-LXXXV, 336
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