From personal collection
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| ‘Kashmir Woman’ Made in Austria |
Weird world. Back then someone in Austria had even made a postal stamp out of the photograph of a Pandit woman profiled by Fred Bremner. In 1921, the image was mislabelled as that of a ‘Boatwoman’ by National Geographic.
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Previously on this image the:
Bhattni/Haenz’bai by Fred Bremner, 1900
As a person who has some knowledge of world stamps, this "Kashmir Woman – Made in Austria" is certainly not a stamp. Why I believe that, well lets look at the facts:
1. Austrian stamps are written in their native language, German. Austrian stamps would have the German word – Österreich on them. It certainly would not have English words on them
2. Stamps generally would have the value of the price on them. For example numbers on the stamp to denote the cost of them at the time. On this stamp, there are no numbers on them.
I suspect this "Kashmir Woman – Made in Austria" is probably a cigarette card, but even then it does baffle me why a Kashmiri woman on the image have the words Made in Austria in the English language rather than in German. How Austria is connected to this Kashmir Woman would be interesting to know !!
Finally, someone pointed out the obvious. Thanks.
The answer is simple, it is label cover of 'Made in Austria' safety matchbox. There's a similar 'Made in Sweden' brand too from that era. Sweden, Austria, Germany…these were the pioneers in the safety match business. In early 1900, 'Made in Austria' was one of the most popular Brands of Match available in the world. Naturally, for the boxes sold in the region covered by 'Raj', exotic native subjects were chosen. Our 'Kashmiri Woman' was just one of the exotica.
P.S. Look up Annie Besant and her matchbox fights. Also, story of Ivar Kreuger. Match Boxes tell some really fascinating stories of technology and economy.