I love it when food and design intersect. One place they do this – in a happy, sunny and totally feel good way – is Sicilian orange wrappers.
I had the great pleasure of attending the first of a new lecture series, The Occasional Lunch, being organized by my friend Cornelia Lauf, in the Sabine hills outside of Rome. The series hopes to bring together people, projects, good food, interesting ideas. In other words: lunch + learning. The first lecture, by Carolyn Smith, was “Orange Wrappers: The Rise and Demise of a Popular Italian Art Form.” Carolyn generously shared her personal collection of orange wrappers with us, which I took the opportunity of photographing. These small, square sheets of tissue paper are used to individually wrap oranges. Each company uses their own logo which somehow expresses what is uniquely special about their oranges.
Aren’t they completely whacky and wonderful? I’m not even going to comment the choice of images, since I think they speak for themselves, loud and clear.
Enjoy!
Elizabeth’s Newsletter from Italy
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My grandfather was a fruit peddler with a horse drawn cart in New Bedford Mass. My father told me they used to save the orange wrappers and use them as toilet paper! If only they knew what art they were desecrating.
OMG!
Loved seeing these. I’ve just written a story about the citrus trade in Chios. In the early 20th c, they used to print wrappers in Italy (often Naples), ship them back to Chios, and then send them all over Europe. The oranges and tangerines sold for a gold sovereign each. Some of the fanciest wrappers were printed in gold.
Wow, how interesting. I didn’t know they were used in other countries.
How wonderful. I love seeing the wrappers. Thank you! They are beautiful. I find singly wrapped fruit to be very special, don’t you? The time someone took to wrap it, lovingly encasing it in a piece of beautiful paper – the whole thing has such “food romance.” The act of unwrapping the fruit only adds to the enjoyment of its consumption. I found of interest the post from Anonymous, and I share your reaction. Don’t you love the stories we hear?
In the early part of the twentieth century U.S. fruit and veg crates displayed some remarkably beautiful artwork that served as iconic images of our various growing regions. Its highly saturated colors evoke sunshine and life, and some of the images have become iconic. While some of the artwork is shocking to our modern sensibilities, it must be viewed through the prism of another time. Crate artwork almost completely disappeared with the advent of corporate agriculture, but is now undergoing a rebirth thanks to a group of small growers. I always smile when I see the new crates with their artwork. It is the personal touch from the farmer that I find particularly pleasing. It is good to know it still exists.
So true! I love wrappers, can labels, etc. In fact, we have all these great can wrappers from an abandoned factory in Liverpool that were never used. Weird and wonderful.
Simply gorgeous. I love the attention to detail and the whimsy given to a piece of fruit!
When I was a kid all the fruit came into Scotland in wrappers like that because, of course the warm climate fruit doesn’t grow in the UK. Bananas came from the Canary Islands and oranges, lemons and pomegranates from the Mediterranean……..all individually wrapped in colorful tissue papers. Fun to see them again!
My grandmother, who was the wife of the artist Martin Bloch, collected orange wrappers, her collection dated from soon after WW1 and into the 1960’s, some of the best of her collection is now in The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Do you have any fruit wrappers for exchange/sale? I had a contact in Italy I used to send empty cigarette packets to and he would send me lovely wrappers like those you illustrate. Sadly, we lost contact a few years ago. It would be nice to add a few more to my collection. I always wondered if the red background on many of them was meant to advertise the fact that they were blood oranges? Do you know if this is true?
Hi Gavin I have 3 maps full of orange wrappers that my grandmother collected. I am thinking of selling them….
I have only two orange wrappers, Disol and Brindie. Also sheets of paper imprinted with dozens of orange wrapper prints from the shippers’ outer packaging.
HI, I’m an italian collector and I have the most important Italian orange wrapper collection (more than 20.000 pieces). I’m looking for others collectors to trade my duplicates. Please, contact me if you agree to trade. Thanks. Romana
Wow! That’s lot of wrappers. I wish I had some to trade, but maybe others do.
I am looking for Israel or Palestine orange wrappers ( Jaffa)/ I Have some that I can change/If not I can buy
sorry, but I’m not a true collector.
I have about 25 wrappers i can trade