Owen, Bernard,‘Now is the hour’ (detail) for Bols, 1/3 page ad from Gourmet, 1959, ad: 7,5 x 29 cm, complete page 21,2 x 29 cm.
This week we have to talk about love.
Although the name Valentine’s Day indicates an early Christian origin (Saint Valentius ending up in death row for marrying Roman soldiers with Christian spouses. After having healed the daughter of his jailer, his last letter to her was supposed to be signed ‘Your Valentine’), the Romantic sentiments are also projected on antique heroes. Here Roman leader Marc Anthony immortalizes eternal love with the act of carving a heart in the breast of the sphinx for his Egyptian sweety Cleo(patra). Note her reaction: three little hearts resonate back from her bossom. Anthony indeed was succesfull: although Cleopatra was not a Christian, they did marry nevertheless.
While nowadays you stumble across red hearts in shops every where, the Valentine-association already served commercial messages in the 1959s, the year this advert was illustrated for the Dutch brand Bols. It praised a rose petal and orange liqueur, with a hint of vanilla: ‘Parfait d’amour’. This ‘Perfect love’ is a purple colored beverage, though, explaining the used color in the advert.
So wait for the crescent moon, that should be ‘the hour’ to let your heart beat with a passion to equal Cleopatra’s, according to the text: ‘… try it today, you’ll love it!’
See for the origins of the iconography: Grotenhuis, Liesbeth, ‘Lying in the arms…: the origins and reception of Luc Olivier Merson’s ‘The rest on the flight to Egypt’.’ In: Visual Past: A Journal for the Study of Past Visual Cultures. University of Hamburg (Germany)
