Posts tagged with "history"



23. February 2024
Mei Lanfang was known as the "Queen of Peking Opera" and in the 1930s became China’s first global superstar. The acclaimed male performer, famous for female lead roles, toured the world & even had his own cigarette brand as we can learn from this artefact in our collection.
10. February 2024
Happy Chinese New Year 2024 from the MOFBA & Pirate Cigarettes!
24. December 2023
Cover of the Mei Foo Shield magazine, Shanghai, December 1925. From the MOFBA collection.
The Mei Foo Shield was the "monthly magazine published by the Standard Oil Company of New York in the interests of its Far Eastern Staff". More on SOCONY in our previous article here.
13. December 2023
Vintage metal advertising calendar from India for EWO Beer, brewed in Shanghai China. From the MOFBA collection.
This EWO promotional calendar from our collection tells the story of a beer once brewed in China & exported around the world incl to India. Yet it also contains a touch of false advertising which tragically leads us to one of the most sardonic murder cases of Old Shanghai.
08. December 2023
1920s trade card for LUX soap with a motif from the classic Chinese novel "Dream of the Red Chamber". From the MOFBA collection.
LUX soap was the first brand in the world to use celebrities as endorsers. This 1920s Chinese trade card from our collection though shows, that before capitalizing on the grandeur and allure of Hollywood it relied of more classical motifs, but which were no less juicy... LUX soap was created by the firm Lever Brothers, now known as Unilever, in 1899. Marketed as a laundry product for over 20 years, only in the 1920s, the company conducted a contest that led them to a very interesting...
01. December 2023
Original vintage Bayer Chinese advertising poster for Aspirin and Tonicum from 1938 featuring Liang Saishan. From the MOFBA collection.
This advertising poster from our collection tells of an incredible streak of bad luck for the German pharma giant Bayer during a both glamorous and troublesome period of history in the Middle Kingdom.
30. October 2023
Halloween Special! Here's how foreign brands and local businesses advertised for the celebration in Shanghai in October 1938. Clippings from an original North-China Daily News paper in the MOFBA collection.
26. September 2023
1937 Munich Beer trademark registration certificate of the EWO Brewery in Shanghai, China. From the MOFBA collection.
In celebration of the 188th Oktoberfest, here's the 1937 Munich Beer trademark registration certificate of the EWO Brewery in Shanghai, China. From the MOFBA collection. More on the Shanghai EWO Brewery in our previous post here.
18. September 2023
1929 Chinese calendar poster advertisement for Pond's Vanishing Cream, illustrated by Zhāng Díhán (张荻寒). From the MOFBA collection.
This 1929 Pond’s advertisement calendar is not only one of the most stunning pieces in our collection, but also an important artefact of China’s modern social history. The beauty brand and its ad agency, Carl Crow Inc., were instrumental in creating the archetypal “Modern Girl” whose image prevails in Chinese popular and commercial culture to this day. Here is the back story of what made it so iconic.
12. September 2023
Late 1930s postcard from a series on Manchurian Life titled "Advertisement Painting". From the MOFBA collection.
This 1930s postcard from our collection reminds us of the lost profession of billboard painter, signwriter or “wall dogs” as its practitioners were often colloquially called. Commercial advertising has a long history in China and in the West but as an industry only emerged several centuries after the invention of Woodblock printing in China in the 9th century, and of the printing press by Gutenberg in around 1436. These technologies eventually allowed for the mass production of flyers,...

Show more