Yaneff.com

This is one of the most magnificent posters by Metlicovitz, for a famous Italian Shoe Company.  He managed – with no formal training – to grow from successful portraitist to the technical director of the famous Ricordi Printing House, become one of Italy's greatest poster artists in the process.
1912 Magazine Ad
 Artist studio in Milan 1904

“Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1868-1944), a native of Trieste, worked primarily in Milan for the Officine Grafiche Ricordi, a giant in the field of publishing and printing providing theaters, predominantly La Scala in Milan, everything from musical scores to posters. An innovator in the industry, Ricordi had an enormous, 43,000+ square foot facility with fifteen large format lithographic machines, ten lithographic presses and nine chalcographic presses. Under the artistic direction of Adolf Hohenstein (1854-1928), Metlicovitz, Marcello Dudovich (a fellow Triestine already commemorated in a similar exhibit 15 yrs ago) and Giovanni Maria Mataloni (1869-1944),  Leonetto Cappiello (1875- 1942) became the premier poster artists at the end of the 1800s and the start of the 1900s.” (bestoftrieste.com)

"This is a selection from the very rare commemorative portfolio published by the renowned Italian printer Ricordi in 1914. The portfolio consisted of 70 lithographic plates (smaller versions) of Ricordi's greatest posters printed between 1895 and 1914. Many of the images in the series are so rare that they can be found today in no other format. In the 1870s, Ricordi opened an in-house lithography shop to promote its operas and sheet music business. Ricordi quickly became the leading lithographer in Italy and by 1895 was creating posters for other clients such as Campari, the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, and the Mele Department store of Naples. Under the tutelage of Adolfo Hohenstein, a brilliant stable of artists emerged at Ricordi.

Artists including Cappiello, Caldanzano, Cavaleri, Dudovich, Laskoff, Metlicovitz and Mataloni brought Art Nouveau, known as Stile Liberty in Italy, to a world class level. Much like the famous Maitre de L'Affiche series created by Cheret in Paris, this portfolio celebrated the rise of the poster - which in Italy was almost single-handedly accomplished by Ricordi." (www.internationalposter.com)