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Matchbox Label

ca. 1951 (made)
Place of origin

Indian matchbox covers form part of India’s vibrant popular visual culture. These small boxes, sold for a few pence, are bold and colourful, some simple and naïve, others more complex and detailed. The images range from gods and goddesses, women, flowers, fruits, monuments, transport, tools, consumer goods and more. Successful covers are continuously copied and there can be endless variations of one particular image produced by rival companies. Many covers have a ‘retro’ feel about them because of this copying process, this also makes them difficult to date. Despite their ephemeral nature, they can convey historical, political and social information. Matchbox art dates back to the 1920s when India began producing its own matches from factories in Calcutta in Bengal and Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu. Prior to this, matches were imported from Europe, mainly Sweden, and Japan. Early images reflect themes of nationalism while more recent images include planes, motorcycles and trucks.

This label appears to be an almost exact copy of an earlier Swedish label. Domesticated chickens are believed to be a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl and in 2003 there was a world population of over 24 billion domestic birds, meaning that there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Offset printing on paper
Brief description
Matchbox label for ‘Cock Matches’, India, 20th century
Physical description
The central image depicts a stylised cockerel in red, blue and white on an orange and beige ground. Below the orange section is the text ‘Cock Matches’ in black, on the right ‘50’s 15 Ps’, ‘Service Indl. Co-ops’ in red and ‘Kali Match Works Ayyaneri’ below in black, whilst on the left hand side is ‘KAMARAJ’ in black within a red outlined oval.
Dimensions
  • Height: 35mm
  • Width: 49mm
Summary
Indian matchbox covers form part of India’s vibrant popular visual culture. These small boxes, sold for a few pence, are bold and colourful, some simple and naïve, others more complex and detailed. The images range from gods and goddesses, women, flowers, fruits, monuments, transport, tools, consumer goods and more. Successful covers are continuously copied and there can be endless variations of one particular image produced by rival companies. Many covers have a ‘retro’ feel about them because of this copying process, this also makes them difficult to date. Despite their ephemeral nature, they can convey historical, political and social information. Matchbox art dates back to the 1920s when India began producing its own matches from factories in Calcutta in Bengal and Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu. Prior to this, matches were imported from Europe, mainly Sweden, and Japan. Early images reflect themes of nationalism while more recent images include planes, motorcycles and trucks.

This label appears to be an almost exact copy of an earlier Swedish label. Domesticated chickens are believed to be a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl and in 2003 there was a world population of over 24 billion domestic birds, meaning that there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird.
Collection
Accession number
IS.106-2012

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Record createdJanuary 8, 2013
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