The collections of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, comprise a unique history of design. The department of Applied Arts and Industrial Design is home to more than 30,000 three-dimensional objects, well over 4,000 of which comprise a rare and extraordinary collection the most unusual of these items. Matchsafes (or Vesta cases) were designed to keep friction matches safe and dry at a time when they were as vital for lighting kitchen stoves as they were for lighting gentlemen's cigars.
In this book, Deborah Sampson Shinn traces the history of these compact metal containers in America, Britain, Europe, and Japan from the 1850s up to the 1910s, when cheap matchbooks and petrol lighters heralded the decline of the matchsafe.
One hundred color illustrations demonstrate the diversity of materials, techniques, and decorative styles employed by matchsafe designers. The history of these containers showcases, in miniature, the design movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Matchsafes reflect high Victorian tastes of ornamentation and were worked into beautiful natural forms, such as animals and insects. The book also examines the influence of the arts and crafts movement and the art nouveau style on matchsafe design. Many matchsafes began to incorporate advertising into their designs. From the beautiful to the whimsical, from Tiffany jewels to celluloid ads, matchsafes were created for people of all lifestyles, and the form's full range is represented here.
The author, Deborah Sampson Shinn, is Assistant Curator of Applied Arts and Industrial Design at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Price: $15.95
|
