Affiche Delftsche Slaolie (1894)
This poster was commissioned by the Nederlandsche Oliefabriek, an oil manufacturer in Delft. Two women with wavy hair and billowing draperies occupy most of the composition. One of them is dressing a salad.

The inscription on top Delftsche Slaolie makes it clear that the advert concerns salad oil, as do the bottles of salad oil on either side of the text. Below it is the crowned coat of arms of the factory (N O F), with a decorative area with peanuts on the left. The majority of the poster is taken up by the two graceful female figures with long hair and billowing draperies. One sits and is dressing a lettuce salad in a large container; the other has her gaze and hands raised. The women with their emphatic contours draw attention away from the actual advertisement, namely for the salad oil. The wavy, rhythmic interplay of lines with which the women’s hair fills the picture surface made such an impression that it became an icon and lent Dutch Art Nouveau its nickname, slaoliestijl, the ‘salad oil style’. | text adapted from Rijksmuseum [x]

Jan Toorop (1858–1928) was born on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies, Toorop settled in the Netherlands at the age of eleven. After studying art at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, he’d spend his time between The Hague, Brussels, England (where his wife was from), and, after 1890, the Dutch seaside town of Katwijk aan Zee. It was during this time that he developed his distinctive style: highly stylized figures, embedded in complex curvilinear designs, with his dynamic line showing influence from his Javanese roots. While perhaps most famous for turning these techniques to his exquisite poster designs, Toorop also produced a substantial body of work far removed from the anodyne demands of the advertising industry, beautiful but haunting works dealing with darker subjects such as loss of faith and death (that you can find in this other post). | text adapted from Public Domain review