The Centaur

The letter dates from Aug. 25th1926 and was signed by Mrs. Smith of Smith and Co., a bakery in Leicester, UK.

The letter reads:

Dear Sir,

Going down Nedham St, yesterday, I noticed a poster advertising your noted Sandeman Port Wine. To say the least of it I was thoroughly disgusted with the picture. The ‘supposed’ man’s expression is absolutely diabolical and lustful. The woman’s pitiful and pleading. Is the woman to climb up the devils back (excuse the expression) for a glass of wine? As a business woman & one who likes a glass of Sandemans in reason I very much object to it, especially as my friends – both male & female – are commenting on the advert and not to its credit.

Faithfully yours,

L.K. Smith


On receipt of the above letter, Mr. Hugh Ponsonby (the Export Manager in Sandeman’s London Office) felt inspired and wrote the following limerick:

It seems there’s a lady in Leicester
Who wouldn’t say no if you pressed her
But the trollop who rides
On the wild horse’s sides
Has put her off Port and depressed her


On May 1926, the “Poster and Outdoor Advertising Magazine” wrote:

It is a very characteristic example of d’Ylen fantastic art, and will no doubt win the hearty disapproval of the conservative school in the advertising world.