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Antique Circa 1910s Zira / NEBO Cigarette Tobacco Silk Folk Art Textile
Wonderful early-20th-century hand-assembled textile featuring original tobacco/cigarette premium silks depicting international flags, coats of arms and women representing countries of the world.
The individual silks date to the early 1900s and include designs associated with Zira and NEBO cigarette premiums. Similar country-woman designs can be identified on surviving Zira Cigarettes examples, while the international flag and arms designs are consistent with related tobacco-silk series produced during the same period.
Visible subjects include Denmark, Russia, Italy, Serbia, Mexico, China, Canada, Zion/Star of David and others.
These colorful textile premiums were distributed with cigarettes during the great tobacco-silk collecting craze of the early 20th century. Collectors frequently incorporated their accumulated silks into decorative needlework, quilts and other household textiles.
This example was individually hand assembled on a dark navy-blue fabric field and embellished with four small decorative needlework medallions.
Measures approximately 13” × 19”.
Antique condition with age-related fading, discoloration, staining, creasing, fraying, loose threads and irregularities to the handmade construction. Please examine all photographs carefully for condition.
No attempt has been made to clean, repair or restore the textile.
An unusual surviving piece of early tobacco advertising, cigarette-silk collecting and American textile folk art.
