20 Japanese Cigarette & Tobacco Wrappers, 98 Japanese Match Box Labels, 1911

Traditional Japanese accordion-fold notebook, 6 x 9 inches; eight leaves with labels pasted on each side; 20 cigarette & tobacco wrappers on versos, 98 match box labels on rectos, front and back covers lightly stained; one matchbook label loose, two empty places in matchbox section.

The labels and wrappers in this album (dated Meiji 44 [1911] on the cover) present several thematic strands. The design and branding of the match labels, produced by a multitude of small companies, are clearly rooted in the nineteenth century (or earlier),whether their overall presentation is Japanese or European (or a mix). Nothing about them could be construed as "modern." In contrast, the tobacco and cigarettes, all products of the national government monopoly, exhibit a logic in their aesthetics and branding that involves tradition and modernity, East and West. The brands of loose tobacco, the most traditionally Japanese product and the one most associated with "the Floating World," are all named after flowers (think geisha), and their artwork is both traditional and representational. The least traditional products, straight cigarettes, have English names and Western-style packaging. The third category, the cigarettes with an integral shapeable hollow tube holder, called in Japanese "tobacco with mouth," are structurally reminiscent of a kiseru, the traditional Japanese tobacco pipe. Their physical structure transforms European technology and behavior into something more Japanese. To complete the conversion of the very Western cigarette into a modern Japanese commodity, these brands all have romantic names evocative of nationalist tradition, while their art work reflects the Modern Rinpa aesthetics of artists such as Korin Furuya. It is likely no accident that all eight brands of "tobacco with mouth" shared their names with Meiji or Taisho Japanese warships, another adaptation of European technology and behavior. Only one of the seven other brands in this collections does.

Identification of Cigarette and Tobacco Wrappers

Numbering the pages from right to left, and the items clockwise from one o'clock:

Page One
Fukujuso ("Fortune Plant," Adonis amurensis), 5 monme (19 gr) loose tobacco
Ayame ("Iris"), 5 monme loose tobacco
Tatsuda ("Floating Autumn Leaves"), cigarettes with integral heavy paper holder
Asahi ("Morning Sun"), cigarettes with integral heavy paper holder
Nadeshiko (a frilled carnation symbolic of the eternal feminine), 5 monme loose tobacco

Page Two
Satsuke ("Azalea"), 5 monme loose tobacco
Yakumo ("Eight Clouds," reference to a mythological epic), cigarettes with holder
Fuji, cigarettes with holder
Yamato (ancient name for the area around Nara), cigarettes with holder
Yayoi (traditional name for the month of March), cigarettes with holder

Page Three
Satsuke, 20 monme (75 gr) loose tobaccco
Fuyo (a showy variety of hibiscus), cigarettes with holder
Star (reverse), straight cigarettes
Shiraume ("White Plum"), 5 monme loose tobacco
Shikishima ("Scattered Islands," i.e., Japan, cigarettes with holder

Page Four
Nadeshiko, 40 monme (150 gr) loose tobacco
Golden Bat, straight cigarettes
Fukujuso, 40 monme (150 gr) loose tobacco

Page Five
Ayame, 40 monme (150 gr) loose tobacco
Star, straight cigarettes

Identifications from www.lsando.com/oldcigarette/oldcigarette1.htm et seq.