1940s World War II Dictators – Spanish Ration Coupon Prints
DESCRIPTION
Four striking portraits of the most consequential dictators of the Second World War, printed on the reverse of Spanish food ration coupons.
These colorful sheets depict Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, and Hitler standing alongside Mussolini during their 1937 meeting in Berlin. Each illustration survives as an intact sheet, with the original perforations dividing the reverse into individual coupons for food and other necessities.
The illustrations are particularly unusual for their combination of political portraiture and ordinary rationing documents. Two commemorate Hitler and Mussolini with their birth and death dates, while another depicts their 1937 Berlin meeting. The portrait of Stalin presents the Soviet leader in military uniform. Their survival alongside the original coupons provides a distinctive record of European political imagery circulating in postwar Spain.
About Spanish Civil War Ration Coupons
Spain experienced severe shortages during the Civil War (1936–1939) and the years that followed. Under Francisco Franco, food rationing continued until 1952, and coupons became a familiar part of everyday life. The reverse sides of these sheets contain vouchers from Spanish communities including Aranda de Duero, Cangas de Tineo, Langreo, and Béjar, redeemable for bread, rice, flour, oil, legumes, and other essentials.
Ration coupons were issued by local authorities and relief organizations to regulate the distribution of scarce food supplies. Printed in perforated sheets, each coupon specified a particular food item or quantity and entitled its holder to purchase that allowance at an officially regulated price. Merchants collected or invalidated the coupons when the food was distributed. Although the printers of these particular sheets remain unidentified, their illustrated reverses distinguish them from ordinary rationing documents and suggest that the sheets also served as a means of circulating political imagery.
CONDITION
1200 W. 35th Street #425 Chicago, IL 60609 | P: (312) 496 - 3622