Object Type
This poster is a colour lithograph, made by printing from a flat surface (traditionally stone, now often a metal plate), on which the artist draws or paints the original design with a greasy substance like chalk. The surface is next prepared, moistened and inked; the greasy printing ink adheres to the design, which is then printed onto a sheet of paper. To make a colour lithograph, a separate printing surface is required for each colour.

Subjects Depicted
Humour was one of the keys to success in the early marketing campaigns for the beef extract Bovril. In this poster it is a play on words, as the bull puts its head out of the carriage window to enquire if it is `right for Bovril'. Another well-known poster showed a bull looking at a jar of Bovril with the slogan 'Alas! My poor brother'.

Trading
The name Bovril is derived from two words: bos, Latin for 'bull' or 'ox', and vril, a fictional word for an energising juice in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel The Coming Race (1871). Sales of Bovril were first recorded in Britain in 1886, at the Colonial and Continental Exhibition at South Kensington. But when Samuel Herbert Benson - a former employee of Bovril Ltd - took over as the firm's advertising agent in the 1890s, business started to boom. His poster strategy, with designers working in close collaboration with copywriters, made Bovril a household name.