Zeppolit Nartional-Getrank
Burgstadt, Schuller & Bottger, [ca,1920]. Schuller & Bottger. Zeppolit National-Getrank. Schuller & Bottger: Burgstadt, ca.1920. Chromolithographic Advertising Poster (450x295mm) verso blank, paper backed.
Print
ZEPPOLIT.
Alkohol-freies National-Getränk. Wohlschmeckend. Erfrischend. Musterschutz.
[Burgstädt: Stadtbrauerei Schüller & Böttger, circa 1912]
Advertising poster, 450 × 285 mm. Chromolithograph in green, yellow and black on cream card. Professionally backed on paper by a conservator. Faintly age-toned, with a small restoration to the bottom edge not affecting the text. Very good condition.
¶ An advertisement for Zeppolit, promoted as an Alkohol-freies National-Getränk (‘alcohol-free national beverage’). A bottle and fluted glass accompany the claims Wohlschmeckend (‘good-tasting’) and Erfrischend (‘refreshing’).
Zeppolit was also the name of a Hanover food-products company established in 1910. A newspaper report of July 1912 records 1,252 bottles of Zeppolit among lemonades supplied for railway refreshment facilities. A recipe published in July 1917 uses Zeppolit with fruit and sugar in a non-alcoholic drink. Together, these references suggest that Zeppolit may have been a proprietary flavouring, syrup or concentrate used to prepare fruit drinks, although the precise composition and the possibility of its sale as a finished beverage remain uncertain.
The company later traded as Zeppolit Aktiengesellschaft. Following bankruptcy proceedings in October 1931, the Zeppolit name, manufacturing equipment, machinery and inventory were transferred in February 1932 to a new Hannover company, Zeppolit-Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, involving the merchant Hermann Mund senior. The relationship between the Hanover concern and Stadtbrauerei Schüller & Böttger remains unestablished.
The poster reflects the expanding market for non-alcoholic refreshments in early twentieth-century Germany, including mineral waters, lemonades, effervescent drinks (Brausen), fruit beverages and alcohol-free beers. Its description of Zeppolit as an alcohol-free ‘national beverage’ presents it as a refreshment in its own right. The temperance movement may have contributed to the wider appeal of such alternatives to alcoholic drinks, though no direct connection with Zeppolit’s marketing has been established.
The restricted palette and direct presentation of bottle and glass recall aspects of Plakatstil, the simplified, product-centred approach to German commercial poster design in the early twentieth century. This stylistic comparison does not establish a precise date.
Apparently unrecorded. No other copy of the poster has been located
Item #11802
Price: $750.00 AUD