Olive Oil Tin Boxes

The Guatelli Collection is the most important collection of tin boxes for olive oil, from those for export to the ones destined for the domestic market, produced between the end of the nineteenth century and the end of the Second World War. The prestige of the collection lies in the fact that it features the first clichés that served as a reference for the print of the entire production: they are a clear testimony of how, in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in Liguria and particularly in the city of Imperia, as a result of the increase in the production of olive oil, establishments were set up to provide lithographed tinplate packagings for the Italian exporting industry. So began the happy marriage between technological and industrial progress and artistic research that led to excellent results, not only from the commercial point of view but also as a means of transmitting the taste and the new languages of art, which allowed to reach an ever wider audience.