Boon's Geïllustreerd Magazijn

In 1896, Johann Georg van Caspel was the first Dutch artist to take up a permanent appointment with Senefelder, a commercial printer, where he was in charge of the production of illustrated advertising material, at the time a new phenomenon in the Netherlands. Advertising posters until then had consisted mainly of text. Van Caspel worked with photolithography. This invention made it possible to produce posters in larger formats. Van Caspel drew thick outlines, which he filled with bright colours. He borrowed the trick of placing figures at the edge of the picture, rather than centrally, from Japanese printmaking. Van Caspel created a number of posters with Jugendstil designs for Boon’s Geïllustreerd Magazijn (Boon’s Illustrated Magazine), a magazine for the affluent middle classes. The work depicted here features a repeated image, using the so-called Droste effect, which creates an illusion of infinity. However, the woman who is reading and the woman on the cover of the magazine that she is reading are in different colours. In the background is a design of winged hourglasses and the words “de tijd vliegt om” (times flies), an allusion to the pleasant pastime of reading.