This is one of several posters designed by the mysterious “Orth” encouraging French citizens to subscribe to the 6th (and final) Italian war loan in 1920. This poster was issued by the Banco di Roma, one of the four major Italian banks, and one that had numerous foreign branches. Like most of these posters promoting war loans after the end of World War I in November 1918, it presents these public donations as essential to rebuilding the economy and the land. Here, the image asserts peace as a necessary condition for work, represented here in the Latin words Pax and Labor and in the united allegorical figures of Marianne, representing the French Republic, and Italia Turrita (Turreted Italy) with a crown of towers on her head pointing to the opportunities for honest labor restored by peace.
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