A sculpted hand reaches down the page toward a mine headframe, and where another sheet would put a slogan, this one puts an instrument: a dial whose face reads «ZOLFO ITALIANO IN TUTTO IL MONDO», its needle swung over a machine loading raw sulfur.
The banner carries the campaign formula, «FORZE DEL LAVORO ITALIANO», and the copy makes a double claim rare in this series: among the most important sectors of national production, Italian sulfur marks «una vittoria dell’autarchia» and «una conquista dell’esportazione» — a victory of self-sufficiency and a conquest of export at once. At the foot, white on black: ENTE ZOLFI ITALIANI.
The one mineral Italy had too much of
Most sheets in this campaign strain to make scarcity look like abundance. Sulfur was the exception: the Sicilian mining basin had dominated world production in the nineteenth century, and sulfur remained one of the few minerals Italy could genuinely export. That is why this page can point its dial at the whole world without exaggerating, and why a state ente — the corporative-era body that organised the sector — rather than a private firm signs the sheet. We have not traced an independent history of the Ente Zolfi Italiani in this pass; the sheet’s own text and imagery are presented as the document they are.
Marks and date
The collector attributes the sheet to Erberto Carboni, reading an EC monogram above the headframe; on our scan only the series’ small agency roundel resolves. Published without an attribution; no printed date, late-1930s campaign.
About this image. The work is still protected by copyright: under Italian law (L. 633/1941) rights run for 70 years from the death of the author. Since the author has not been identified, that term cannot be considered expired, and the image is treated as fully protected. It is reproduced here for documentation, study and critical purposes only, under Art. 70 of L. 633/1941 and the fair-use provision of 17 U.S.C. §107. The scan was made by the collector from his own copy of the sheet, part of the period material he keeps in a private archive: owning the physical sheet is not the same as holding the rights to the work. The image is not offered for sale, no reproduction rights are granted, and any request concerning the work should be addressed to the rights holders. Cultural Heritage Online publishes this material to document it, with no celebratory intent; see our terms and the DMCA contact published there.
Sources
- The sheet itself, for the ente’s name, the copy and the dial.
