Heinrich Zille (1858 Radeburg - 1929 Berlin) Children in front of a chocolate vending machine The depiction shows a scene with a group of children in a humorous, exaggerated manner characteristic of Zille. The summer holidays lured the wealthier Berliners, the rich, the beautiful, the literati and artists to the spas on the Baltic Sea, to Rügen, Hiddensee and Usedom. In this picture, this also includes a smartly dressed city girl with a delicate parasol, who is crouching in front of a wall of advertising hoardings in a less than elegant pose with her skirt up. Opposite her, a group of small country children stand at a respectful distance in front of the vending machine. Zille pointedly depicts the arrogant directness and self-assurance of the city girl, in contrast to the figures of the smaller children, who stand in front of the chocolate vending machine in amazement and with a mixture of shyness and temptation. At the same time, Zille shows the ingenious marketing strategy of a company: since 1887, the chocolate vending machines installed by the Stollwerck company proved to be extremely successful, with around 15,000 vending machines selling Stollwerck chocolate worldwide and in many places as early as 1893. Sales were further boosted from 1897/98 by a trick whereby Stollwerck enclosed small, individual collectible pictures with the chocolate packaging, thus motivating buyers to purchase further products in order to complete the series for collectible picture albums. Stollwerck used the designs of well-known contemporary artists such as Adolph von Menzel, Max Liebermann, Melchior Lechter, Otto Eckmann, Heinrich Vogeler and Otto Modersohn for the collectible pictures as advertising and sales tools. A 25-gramme bar of chocolate cost ten pfennigs, an expensive pleasure compared to the wages of the time, as the big girl here was able to afford. Zille's accompanying text reveals her pomposity towards the intimidated other children: "Imagine, you'll get the picture of my chocolate too!". With the present picture, Heinrich Zille took up a composition that he had previously created in 1923 as the corresponding lithograph "Kinder vor Schokoladenautomat". Pen and watercolour with opaque white heightening. Signed and dated in the depiction lower right. 1927; below dedication "Der lieben Familie Karl Legien herzlichen Glückwunsch H. Zille". Sheet 20.2 cm x 26.1 cm. Frame. We would like to thank Mr Matthias Flügge for his kind information. Provenance: Dissolution of a southern German entrepreneur's collection. Indian ink, watercolour and whitening on paper. Signed and dated 1927, further dedication by the artist.