On your wall
Five Schools, Built to Deepen · Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras
Skeletons hawking their wares and shouting about teetotalers, drunkards, old men and kids, tomcats and working girls
José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913) · Published by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (1852–1917), 1900
What it is
A Mexican broadside by José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913), printed in photo-relief and letterpress on cheap yellow paper and published by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, circa 1900–1910. It shows calaveras — animated skeletons — working the street as hawkers.
Why it matters
Posada made images for the penny press, and the calavera was his sharpest tool: the skeleton is a leveller, so a vendor bawling his pitch at the sober and the sodden, the old men and the kids, becomes a joke at the expense of every rank of the living. Published by Vanegas Arroyo for a mass audience, this belongs to the great late-Porfirian run of broadsides that carried gossip, ballads and satire to ordinary Mexican readers.
What to notice
Look at the yellow stock and the heavy relief line — cheap, fast printing chosen for speed, and exactly what gives the figures their blunt, carrying bite.
Death runs a market stall, and everyone is a customer.
Provenance
- School
- Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras (Various)
- Designer
- José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913)
- Format
- Broadside
- Poster published
- Published by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (1852–1917), 1900
- Source
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · 46.46.313
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the poster’s own publication year. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-18.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 18x24" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
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