Zaphirio Special Brand Egyptian Cigarettes Box, Circa 1910s-1920s

Cardboard box for Zaphirio Special Brand of Egyptian Cigarettes, illustrated with a seated woman resting against a sphinx before the pyramids and a Nile sailboat, with the French phrase "destinées aux personnes de goût" ("intended for people of taste") - one of the many smaller Egyptian-cigarette export houses that leaned on classic pyramid-and-sphinx Orientalist imagery to compete with larger firms like Melachrino and Kyriazi Freres. Dates to approximately 1910s-1920s. Toned cardboard typical of age, with crisp, legible graphics.