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Please pack parcels very carefully

Poster
April 1959 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Poster encouraging the public to carefully wrap parcels. The image, on a green background, features a broken blue and white ceramic creamer shaped like a cow, decorated with pink spots. Its body is in seven pieces, demarked by jagged edges. It has a teardrop on its face, falling from its eye. This ceramic creature sits within a yellow and brown ovoid-shaped area, representing its wrapping, with a length of white string emerging from underneath. At the top of the poster is the slogan, 'Please pack parcels very carefully'. The artist has signed himself, 'Eckersley' in the lower left corner.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitlePlease pack parcels very carefully (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Colour lithograph
Brief description
'Please pack parcels very carefully', poster depicting a broken ornament, designed by Tom Eckersley for the GPO, United Kingdom (London), April 1959
Physical description
Poster encouraging the public to carefully wrap parcels. The image, on a green background, features a broken blue and white ceramic creamer shaped like a cow, decorated with pink spots. Its body is in seven pieces, demarked by jagged edges. It has a teardrop on its face, falling from its eye. This ceramic creature sits within a yellow and brown ovoid-shaped area, representing its wrapping, with a length of white string emerging from underneath. At the top of the poster is the slogan, 'Please pack parcels very carefully'. The artist has signed himself, 'Eckersley' in the lower left corner.
Dimensions
  • Height: 73.6cm
  • Width: 92cm
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'Please pack parcels very carefully' (Above the image, in white letters)
  • 'GPO' (Lower right corner, in white, the logo of the General Post Office, the letters, with a crown above, within a lozenge-shaped outline)
  • 'ECKERSLEY' (Artist's name and date, in black in the lower left corner)
  • 'C.P. LTD. 35-12041' (Printer's information, lower left corner)
  • 'P.R.D. 1017' (Issue number, lower right corner below GPO logo)
Credit line
Gift of the American Friends of the V&A; Gift to the American Friends by Leslie, Judith and Gabri Schreyer and Alice Schreyer Batko
Subjects depicted
Associated objects
Other number
LS.2006 - Leslie Schreyer Loan Number
Collection
Accession number
E.1009-2004

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Record createdApril 28, 2006
Record URL
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