This calendar was designed by Zhou Baisheng and printed in Shanghai, China
Zhou Baisheng designed artwork for advertising posters for a number of different companies, including BM & Co Fertilizer Co, Peking Five Star Beer Company, and the Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company.
The success of these this type of advertising poster/calendar meant that local artists and designers found a lucrative outlet with the growing demand for watercolour posters. Some were employed directly by companies such as the British American Tobacco Co and China Nanyang Brother Tobacco Co, others set up their own studios. This fostered a new form of expression that is a synthesis of Western idea and Chinese illustration technique, in which Chinese watercolour technique was effectively employed to add emphasis and a refined elegance to posters depicting familiar Chinese scenes and settings, historical figures, gods and characters of opera and legend.

Overseas companies such as the British American Tobacco Co, were the first to introduce this type of product promotion to China, which then prompted similar tactics from local Chinese companies.

Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company, Shanghai China. This company was the largest Chinese owned tobacco company at the time, and it was the British and American Tobacco Company's largest competitor. They used the poster/calendars to promote their products and they gave them to customers once they had purchased a certain number of cigarettes.
Purchased by the vendor in China in 1995.

Calendar, cigarette advertising, paper/metal, Nanyang Bros Tobacco Co, Shanghai, China, 1920-1940. Colour printed advertising poster on thick paper with metal strips along top and bottom. Illustration shows an old Taoist sage in blue robes holding a fly whisk and a young woman in elaborate robes standing next to him holding a vase of lotus flowers. Clouds, lotuses and lingzhi fungus float around them.
Inscription along the top in red 'Nan Yang xiongdi yancao fufen youxian gongsi (Nangyang Bros Tobacco Co Ltd)', 'Man bao sheng xiang (fullness/precious/give birth to/fragrance)'. Packets of cigarettes are illustrated along the bottom, The Beauty, Numerous Treasure, Ngaikuo, The Golden Horse, Golden Dragon, Pearls, Hundred Arrows, Dragon. The adresses for the head office and factory in Shanghai are printed along the bottom. In the bottom left of the illustration the artist's mark 'Zhou Baisheng'.

Made: Shanghai, China; 1920 - 1940

96/254/5

1920 - 1940

1340 mm

475 mm