Matchsafes: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian - Softcover

Shinn, Deborah Sampson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857592379 ISBN 13: 9781857592375

Publisher: Scala Publishers, 2006

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Deborah Sampson Shinn is Assistant Curator, Applied Arts and Industrial Design at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scala Publishers
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1857592379
• ISBN 13: 9781857592375
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112