Description:
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… Read More