Wittemann Bros.’ 1879 promotional lithograph E. Anheuser Co.’s Brewing Association, St. Louis Lager Beer turns a bottle of beer into the commanding centrepiece of an elaborate commercial spectacle. The tall brown bottle rises through a crowded horizontal composition, its reflective highlights and emphatic label separating it from a richly ornamented setting of banners, cherubs, floral borders and industrious brewery scenes. Warm reds, earthy browns and flashes of green and gold give the design a festive intensity, while the prominent company name across the top ensures that decoration never obscures the advertisement’s purpose.

Created at a time when mass printing and an expanding consumer culture were transforming American advertising, the poster belongs to an era in which manufacturers increasingly sought to make names, labels and packaging memorable. Its abundance is strategic: scenes of production suggest efficiency, commercial imagery conveys reach, and award references lend authority to the product. For E. Anheuser Co.’s Brewing Association, already linked to one of the most recognisable names in American brewing, such imagery presented St. Louis lager not merely as a local drink but as the product of a confident, modern enterprise.

A closer look

The eye is first drawn to the bottle in the central foreground. Its scale is deliberately disproportionate, transforming an everyday object into something almost architectural. A concentrated gleam across the glass gives it weight and polish, while the wording “St. Louis Lager Beer” makes the identity of the product immediately legible. Around it, coloured banners sweep through the composition, linking the bottle to the larger framework of promotional text and ornament. Beneath it sits a gold medal inscribed “Grand Gold Medal Paris 1878”, positioned as a compact emblem of distinction.

The surrounding vignettes broaden the advertisement’s story. In the upper corners, playful cherubs animate the otherwise formal symmetry, their bright costumes and gestures lending a note of celebration. Below, smaller scenes shift the emphasis from festivity to manufacture and trade. A brewery interior at the lower right contains workers, barrels and equipment, compressed into an intricate account of organised production. Along the lower edge, warehouses, boats and a waterfront unfold in panorama, visually connecting the brewery with transport and commerce.

Much of the design’s richness lies in the transitions between these different registers. Dense scrollwork and floral motifs frame practical scenes of labour; bold display lettering sits beside miniature narrative detail; softened cream and beige passages allow stronger reds and greens to punctuate the surface. Even the sky contributes to the theatrical effect, moving through delicate peach and blue tones behind the more assertive foreground forms. Fine lines articulate faces, machinery and architecture, rewarding close attention without weakening the poster’s immediate graphic hierarchy.

Context and significance

Late nineteenth-century beverage advertising often had to communicate several ideas at once: the appeal of the drink, the reliability of its maker and the scale of the business behind it. Wittemann Bros. achieves this through accumulation rather than restraint. Product, producer, prize, factory and distribution network all appear within a single ornamental scheme. The result is both advertisement and corporate portrait, presenting the brewery as prosperous, internationally recognised and thoroughly connected to the industrial life of its city.

The lithograph also captures a formative moment in the history of branding. Its bottle and label occupy the position that a heraldic device or allegorical figure might have held in an earlier decorative composition, while the surrounding imagery supplies a modern mythology of manufacture, awards and commercial reach. That combination of exuberant ornament and calculated persuasion makes the poster an especially vivid document of American advertising culture in 1879.

Choosing the right size and finish

Artwork can feel intimate at smaller sizes and dramatically more architectural at larger ones. Use the room preview, model image and size guide to see how the proportions and scale will work in your space.

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The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) version of this art print.

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Every piece is produced to archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte art paper. Choose an art print, framed art print or framed canvas using the finish options above.

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Selected artworks can be produced at statement sizes up to 3 metres (10ft). Custom sizing and specialist framing are also available. If the exact option you need is not listed, contact our workshop.

This artwork is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The work is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present an art print without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas art and explore the differences between my different finishes.