Massani's
"The Phonograph"
Form
935 Advertising Card - Delighted and Amazed 1906
Above is a postcard of
"The Phonograph," a.k.a. "The Old Couple," adapted
from Massani's original painting to be featured in an Edison advertising
campaign. The first of the paintings by Massani, however, "showed
an elderly man listening to a "Puck style" cylinder phonograph."
The oil painting known as "The
Phonograph" was painted by Professor Pompeo Massani of Florence
and was purchased by an Edison agent in April 1905. (1)
The version below has added the woman
to become the old couple but still has a Puck-style cylinder
phonograph. After its purchase the entire design was recopied by an
American artist who substituted an Edison Home for the Puck. (2)
The Massani painting that was purchased
in April 1905 with the couple and their Puck-style cylinder phonograph
is now on display at the Edison Winter Home at Fort Myers, Florida.
(Courtesy of the Edison and Ford Winter Home and APM).
For details about the original painting
and more related history after it was purchased by Edison's agent
see "Lost and Found: The Massani-Edison Painting Mystery"
by Allen Koenigsberg in Volume
11 Number 2 of the Antique Phonograph Monthly (APM).
"The
Phonogram" ©1905
"The Phonograph,"
read the back of one of 800,000 Edison advertising post cards, "depicts
the delighted amazement of an old couple upon hearing a Phonograph
for the first time."
"The Phonograph,"
Edison Form 935 (PM-2111)
"This famous painting is remarkable
for the delight and amazement depicted upon the faces of the old couple
upon their first hearing the Phonograph."
Allen Koenigsberg in his
APM article writes
that "the American copy of Massani's painting must have been
made around October 1905 as the the two-minute style number 9107 appears
on the cap of the cylinder box."
Form
1380 postcard
Issued
by the National Phonograph Company, Orange, N.J. 1906
Here is what the Edison
Phonograph Monthly said about this painting and the upcoming Edison
advertising campaign in March 1906:
A
STRIKING OIL PAINTING. A calendar for 1906 was mailed to the entire
trade early in January. Its principal feature was a reproduction by
the three-color process of an oil painting of an old couple listening
in delighted amazement to an Edison Phonograph for the first time.
The original of this picture was painted by Massani, a noted Italian
painter. It was imported a year ago by William Johnson, then of Fifth
avenue, New York city. Its first public exhibition in this country
was at the Chalfonte Hotel, Atlantic City, where Mr. Johnson had an
extensive exhibit of paintings, and where it was priced at $1,050.
It was there bought by the National Phonograph Co. It is now being
reproduced in a handsome and life-like manner in fourteen colors of
lithography, and copies will later be distributed to the trade. This
reproduction will be the full size of the original painting, 17 x
25 inches. It will be worth a place in any home. Other uses of the
painting will follow. The subject is universally regarded as one of
the most striking ever put out in connection with a talking machine.
The
Edison Phonograph Monthly, March 1906
Back
side of Form 935 Advertising Card for H. J. Ebenreiter, Pianos, Organs,
Furniture and Undertaking, Plymouth, WIsconsin
Magazine ad with Edison
Phonograph, December 1906
The Edison
Phonograph Monthly, April 1907
Suggested Retirement
In 1908 Edison's advertising manager
was ready to retire "the old couple":
"As an ordinary illustration, we
have used it about as much as could be expected....While the uses
we have made of the old couple have been satisfactory to the trade
and we have had many favorable expressions concerning it, the trade,
from my observation, constantly wants something new in the way of
illustrated matter. New folders, new cards, new lithographs, new posters,
etc., in my opinion, have a greater selling value than the continued
use of one subject like the dog or the old couple."
Letter from L. C. McChesney to W. E.
Gilmore, President of The National Phonograph Co., January, 1908
Not yet!
The complete retirement of the Old Couple,
however, didn't happen and the June 1913 Edison Phonograph Monthly
shows the couple are apparently considered "new and striking"
and "bound to attract attention."
Here's the text for the article headed
EDISON EIGHT-SHEET POSTERS.
Of all the effective ways of advertising
at this season of the year, the local bill-board certainly should
be most favorably considered. More people are out of doors now than
at any other time of the year, and observe more that is new and
striking in the way of advertising. Our "Old-Couple" poster,
a standard eight-sheet, executed in high colors, is bound to attract
attention. We furnish these free to Dealers, requiring only a copy
of your contract with your local bill-posting concern to complete
our records.
The Edison Phonograph
Monthly, June, 1913, p. 9
Phonographia
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