A. Hoen & Co.’s 1878 poster Group of men representing different countries of the world, dressed in costumes, stand watching bock goat butt his opponent turns a beverage motif into a crowded comic performance. Two goats collide in the central foreground while a semicircle of spectators presses in behind them, their varied costumes, hats and flags creating a colourful procession across the landscape. A man in a brilliant red jacket raises his mug at centre left, giving the gathering the air of a toast, a contest and a theatrical tableau all at once.

The goat carried particular force in nineteenth-century bock-beer imagery. Bock is the German word for a male goat, and the animal became an immediately recognisable visual pun in advertising for the strong lager associated with that name. Here the joke is expanded into an international spectacle. The assembled men are presented through the period’s conventionalised ideas of national dress rather than as individual portraits, reflecting a print culture fascinated by cataloguing the peoples of the world through costume, caricature and easily read visual types. The result is exuberant, but it also preserves the stereotype-driven language through which many nineteenth-century audiences encountered other countries.

A closer look

The composition is organised around impact. The larger goat occupies the lower centre, its brown-and-cream coat carefully articulated as it lunges towards its smaller opponent. Their lowered heads and braced bodies form a compact knot of movement against the grass. Because the animals are set slightly apart from the spectators, the foreground reads almost like an improvised arena, enclosed at the lower left by a tree stump and framed behind by the crowd.

Above this earthy confrontation rises a remarkably ornamental band of human figures. Warm browns, ochres and oranges are punctuated by sharper passages of red and yellow, while green foliage and distant hills provide a cooler setting. The costumes reward close attention: hems, jackets and sashes carry fine decorative detail, and the changing forms of the headgear help distinguish one figure from the next. Several men hold mugs aloft; others lean forward or turn towards their companions, their expressions and gestures spreading the comedy of the central encounter through the group.

Flags in the upper part of the scene extend the action vertically and keep the eye moving across the horizontal arrangement. They also reinforce the poster’s conceit of many nations assembled around a single spectacle. Yet the strongest graphic contrast remains between the comparatively calm landscape and the densely packed foreground. Soft hills recede at the upper right, while the figures, mugs, flags and animals crowd together below in a bright display of incident.

Context and significance

A. Hoen & Co., established in 1835, worked within the expanding nineteenth-century world of commercial illustrated printing. By 1878, posters and advertising images had become increasingly elaborate vehicles for selling not only a product but also an atmosphere of sociability, novelty and amusement. This design does not rely on prominent lettering to carry its message. Instead, the raised drinking vessels and the bock goat provide the essential clues, allowing narrative and visual humour to do the work of promotion.

The poster is especially revealing in the way it combines commerce with the era’s appetite for spectacle. Its national costumes offer instant variety; the goat contest supplies comic action; and the celebratory gestures bind the scene together as communal entertainment. Viewed today, its appeal lies partly in that restless abundance of detail and partly in what it discloses about nineteenth-century advertising: a world in which wordplay, theatrical grouping and simplified cultural identities could be brought together in one memorable scene.

Choosing the right size and finish

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The model in the listing images is holding the 18x24in (45x60cm) version of this art print.

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This artwork is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The work is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present an art print without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas art and explore the differences between my different finishes.