Vintage Cigarette Advertisement on Printed Silk

This silk textile is printed with the lavish design of a vintage Chinese cigarette advertisement poster. Such advertisements, depicting fashionable women and influenced by the Art Deco movement in the west, reflect the economic boom of early 20th-century Shanghai, an international center of business and trade. Mixing traditional subject matter with the styling of Western color lithography, these vintage posters were often distributed by cigarette companies to commemorate the Chinese New Year.

This silk poster for W.D. & H.O. Wills Cigarettes depicts a fashionable young woman strolling through a formal garden, pausing to gaze over the serene riverbank. Curiously, the image is devoid of the product it touts, the cigarette pack instead reserved as a border. Offering a glimpse of the past, the textile is wonderful as an unusual curtain or wall hanging.