"In 1895 the first commercial design worthy of the name was brought out by Matoloni for Brevetto Auer: a beautiful nymph whose bare body is draped in a thin veil gives us a voluptuous smile wreathed by a radiant corona from the gas flame"(Weill p.84)

"Mataloni’s poster for Brevetto Auer is the first poster for an electric light bulb in Italy (Auer was a leading gas light manufacturer as well). Surrounded by an abbondanza of flowing vines, a damsel holds a light bulb whose rays reveal her scantily clad figure holding up a giant sunflower amidst swirling and geometric patterns of orange, aquamarine and tan.

This suggestive symbolist tour de force is one of the most important of early Italian posters, so famous that it was only one of four Italian designs to appear in Cheret’s Maitres de l’Affiche portfolio of the best posters of the Belle Epoque. Mataloni, along with Hohenstein, is considered a father of the Italian poster and Italian Art Nouveau (known as Stile Liberty), and this was his first masterpiece. Both men admired the work of Alphonse Mucha, but they also advanced the establishment of a distinctive Italian poster style – more earthy, sensual and theatrical." (internationalposter.com)