M&B Stock No. 131 "Delighted"

General Comments
Clearly a design targeted at the ice cream or diary industry, No.131 exceeds the two previous “ice cream” designs (No.96 and No.104), which primarily just show the product by introducing a typical Meek/American Art Works “pretty lady.” The design is reminiscence of “Jeanette” (No.121) with similar colors and background, although it shows her in action eating some ice cream and not a static portrait like most of the previous “pretty ladies.”

Not surprisingly, every example we’ve seen of this design has been from an ice cream manufacturer/diary. All of the ones for which we have geographic information, all are be located in the Mid-Atlantic to Northeast.

Sahling does not have an entry in his workbook for this design and we have not seen an example with an artist’s signature, nor would we expect to; clearly this was a design with a specific commercial advertising intent. As such, it would have been considered an illustration as opposed to a work of art and in all likelihood was done in-house.

Size, Shape & Advertising Placement
The majority of examples we’ve seen have been pies, although there have been a fair number of square trays. These are modified from the original round version and appear as a round image on a square tray versus having the image completely cover the surface. Rims are black with gold advertising text.

Hager & Price
Although he does not discussion this design, somewhat surprisingly Hager does include it in his date of introduction table (1913) and includes it in his catalog. Obviously, there are no brewery examples, but prices are fairly strong for non-brewery examples, with most going in the low three figures and some of the better examples in the mid-three figures. One very nice example even managed low four figures for a particularly nice example.