At the top, a photographed flock of sheep, packed so tight they read as a single fleece. From the flock, five threads drop straight down into five spools. The whole argument of wool autarky in one visual move: the raw material walks on four legs, and it is Italian.
Under the spools runs the band «PER L’AUTARCHIA». The lower half changes register: columns of hanging cloth flank a photographed globe, the words TESSUTI MARZOTTO cut across the page in double-exposure block letters, and along the bottom edge stretches a factory panorama — the long ranks of sheds and the chimney of a wool town. The copy on the right calls the firm «a superb affirmation of Italian labour before the world, a precious contribution to the prosperity and independence of the country» — prosperity and independence, the two words the campaign was built on.
Valdagno
The name on the sheet is the Manifattura Lane Gaetano Marzotto & Figli of Valdagno, in the Vicenza pre-Alps — the wool house that grew into what is today Italy’s largest textile group by turnover and workforce. In the 1930s Valdagno was not just a factory but a company town in full construction: the «social city» of housing, schools and sports grounds that Gaetano Marzotto junior was building across the river from the mills. The panorama along the sheet’s lower edge is that industrial landscape, drawn as a single continuous frontage. Wool sat at the centre of the textile autarky debate: unlike cotton, the raw material could be raised at home, and a photographed flock made the point better than any slogan.
Marks and date
In the lower right corner sits the small circular agency monogram with «MILANO» beneath it that recurs across this series, read by the collector as the mark of the Milanese concessionaire IGAP — a reading the scan is too small to confirm. The sheet carries no printed date and is published without an attribution; the campaign slogans place it with its companions in the late 1930s.
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
- Marzotto — the Valdagno group, today the first Italian textile company by turnover and workforce
- Valdagno — the «Città sociale» built by Gaetano Marzotto Jr on the left bank of the Agno
- The sheet itself, for the company name, the copy and the agency monogram.
