ORNEFER war jewellery advertising
Books & Magazines
Inventory number
2021.7.9.13.BM.PU.1915.FRDescription
Page from the "L'Illustration" magazine from December 18, 1915, with a print representing on the top an advertising for Ornefer First World War jewellery. The image shows three necklaces hand made of metal with different simple cut pendants representing hearts, clove leaves, flowers and crosses. The advertising is accompanied with texts "Tout l'Or pour la Patrie!" (All Gold for the Fatherland!) and "En ces jours de bataille Nous portons des bijoux faits d'éclats de muraille" (In these days of battle We wear jewellery made of wall fragments).Wars are always financed by the people and World War I was no exception: Europe still used the gold standard in 1914 and every banknote was guaranteed by and freely exchangeable for gold. So the French government couldn't just print bills; it was first to extract as much gold as possible from the population before removing the indexation of gold banknotes. Huge publicity campaigns encouraged people to exchange their gold coins for National Defense loans with propaganda posters pasted across the country.
It is especially during the WWI, that particular war jewels appeared. They can be classified into two categories: jewellery made by soldiers - jewelry from the trenches, and jewellery sold by manufacturers to a public, keen on a way to show their support for the cause and for the troops.
On the bottom of the page there is a publicity for Flamidor lighters, and on the back, there are advertisings for Zenith carburetors and wigs by Marius HENG.
Material
PaperOrigin
1915 FranceDimensions
Length : 29.5 cmHeight : 40.5 cm