Could someone tell me if it's old/what's the deal with it? Looks like a cigarette ad, but I can't decipher anything else about it.
Link: http://imgur.com/gallery/0x9dP9t (Poster is maybe NSFW?)
Context: I work at a low barrier homeless shelter, where interesting stuff that gets thrown away and then found by binners gets brought and then forgotten, so the purest miscellany regularly materializes without any explanation. This has been on the bathroom wall for a while and I've been wondering what the heck is up with it for the better part of a year.
This is indeed an advertisement! The print on the bottom right says "请吸三杯牌香烟", or "Please smoke Sanbei brand cigarettes". The art is by a Chinese painter in the early 1900's by the name of Zhiying Hang (杭穉英) known for a "western" style of art when it was fairly avant-garde in China, and who also apparently loved to paint ladies. You can find loads of examples of his art if you google his name.
It looks like a Shanghai Lady Poster in the 1930s style. Here are some additional examples:
http://www.shanghaipropagandaart.com/collection_5_1.asp?class=Shanghai_Lady_Poster
And since this is AskHistorians, here’s a scholarly article about the origins and development of yuefenpai or “calendar posters”
http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=1670048&fileOId=1670053
From an auction site for the same poster:
20x30 inches [approx.], issued post 1950. Tin end strips. The soft, faded lines, intricate detailing, and the strange proportions of vintage Chinese posters might look strange to contemporary Western designers, especially when the idea of ”good advertisement poster design” as taught in design schools has trended towards the minimalist in the past half a century. Pre-War Shanghai posters are as distinct a genre as anything that came out of Europe in the years between the 1880’s through the 1930’s. Unconventional and sloppy by Western standards, these unique works of advertising art are nevertheless a cultural treasure, not just for China, but the entire world. Originally intended as ephemeral promotions for the vast array of products that flooded China’s newly opened economy, these ads have had a lasting influence in the region that could still be seen in some ways today. They are a fusion of oriental and occidental styles that is unprecedented. If you look at Chinese art from the late 19th century and Western Art Nouveau and Art Deco from the 1880’s through the 1920’s, it’s clear that these posters were heavily influenced by those styles. Shanghai, already a large international economic center back then in the 1920’s, was ground zero for these varied and often risque advertisements.
You might get more response on r/whatisthisthing