1. Who We Are

Gatto Nero Publishing is an independent seller of vintage poster art, specialising in Italian and European advertising graphics from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We sell digital downloads of these works to customers worldwide.

Our purpose is to celebrate and preserve access to the extraordinary artistic heritage of vintage commercial illustration — works created by talented artists whose contribution to graphic design history deserves to be remembered, appreciated, and shared.

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2. How We Source Our Posters

Every work we offer for sale has been individually researched before listing. We source exclusively from:

• Wikimedia Commons — works documented as public domain by the world’s largest open-content repository, verified by their dedicated copyright review community
• Creative Commons licensed sources — works released under CC-BY 4.0 or equivalent open licences by their rights holders, permitting free use with attribution
• Established public domain archives — institutional and academic repositories that have carried out their own copyright assessment

We do not source from commercial stock libraries, we do not reproduce works without verifying their status, and we do not list anything where copyright status is unclear or disputed.

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3. Public Domain & EU Copyright Law

The majority of works we sell are in the public domain — meaning copyright has expired and the works belong to everyone.

Under European Union copyright law, copyright in a work expires 70 years after the death of the author. The vintage advertising posters we specialise in were created predominantly between the 1880s and the 1960s. The artists responsible for these works — many of them celebrated names in Italian and European graphic design — have in most cases been deceased for many decades, placing their work firmly in the public domain.

Where a work carries a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 licence, this means the rights holder has chosen to make the work freely available for sharing and adaptation, including for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original creator. We always provide this attribution.

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4. Artist Attribution

We believe that naming and crediting the artists behind these works is not just a legal obligation — it is a moral one. These were skilled professionals whose work shaped the visual culture of their era, and they deserve to be remembered by name.

Where artist information is available, we include it on every product listing. Where an artist is known only by a surname, a studio name, or a pseudonym — as was common practice among Italian commercial illustrators of the mid-twentieth century — we note this and continue to research their full identity.

We actively consult historical archives, including institutional collections such as the Galleria Campari in Sesto San Giovanni, in our ongoing effort to attribute works correctly and completely.

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5. Trademark & Brand Imagery

Some of the vintage posters we sell feature the names or imagery of well-known brands. This is an inherent characteristic of vintage advertising art and does not constitute trademark infringement.

Selling a historical artwork that depicts a brand is a practice recognised and accepted in law, and is entirely distinct from using a trademark to promote or endorse a product commercially. We make no claim of association with, endorsement by, or affiliation with any brand whose imagery may appear in a historical artwork we sell.

Vintage advertising posters featuring brand imagery are sold by auction houses, galleries, museums, and independent sellers worldwide. Our listings exist within this well-established and legitimate tradition of preserving and sharing commercial art history.

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6. Our Commitment to Compliance

• We verify the copyright status of every work before listing it for sale
• We attribute artists fully and accurately wherever information is available
• We remove any listing promptly upon receipt of a credible, evidenced claim
• We comply fully with EU copyright law and the EU Digital Services Act