Armando Testa (1917-1992) - Carpano Punt e Mes

Original vintage advertising poster by Armando Testa (Italy, 1917–1992) for Carpano Punt e Mes, one of the most iconic motifs in Italian 20th-century advertising graphics, rather rare.

Title: Carpano Punt e Mes

Year of production: 1949

Technique: typographic offset printing on antique paper

Edition: original poster intended for posting, unnumbered

Signature: printed, as shown in the image on the bottom right.

Support: original paper, canvas-backed

Dimensions: 184 × 124 cm

Frame: present

Provenance: private collection

Condition: good. Slight sign of humidity at the bottom, stable and not invasive on the main image. Colors well preserved; normal signs of aging compatible with the work's age.

An authentic work, not a modern reprint, of great collectible interest for enthusiasts of Italian graphic design and historical advertising.


THE STORY
The manifesto refers to Carpano's vermouth, one of the many Piedmontese products Armando Testa worked on. The name of the vermouth derives from the Piedmontese 'un pont e mes' (which means 'one point and a half') and stands for one point of sweetness and half a point of bitterness: according to tradition, on April 19, 1870 in Turin, at the Carpano shop, a stockbroker (preoccupied with the idea of a stock's value changing in points) ordered the bartender a pont e mes, that is, a vermouth corrected with half a china.