In the months following World War I, Schwitters began making art from detritus and material found in the streets. In carefully composed collages of discarded papers, often from printed matter, he sought poetry in the leftovers of modern life. He used the term Merz to describe his works, from the German Kommerz (commerce) partly visible on a piece of paper in one of his first assemblages. To signal the artistic nature of his enterprise, Schwitters framed his collages with a mat and gave them a title and an opus number. The name Alma Gassert appears on a telegram included in this collage.
Inscribed in black ink on mat, at lower left, Mz 309 / Alma Gassert, and at lower right, K. Schwitters. 1921. / B; inscribed in graphite, on the back, Mz 309.