The Wave luxury safety matches bring a famous piece of Japanese artwork into your home – in miniature! Put the matchbox on display to show off the artwork and keep the matches handy for when you need them.

The matchbox is printed with a section of the famous woodcut ‘The Great Wave off Konagawa’ by the renowned Japanese printmaker, Hokusai. The matches are approximately 10cm long – so you can finally get to the bottom of that pillar candle, jar or tealight holder without risking your fingers.

Please note: colours of the matches may vary from the image due to colour shortages.

The matchboxes are designed and printed in the UK by Archivist. They use traditional letterpress printing – a technique that’s remained almost unchanged since Johannes Gutenberg first invented the printing press in the mid-15th century. An inked stamp or engraving is pressed onto a sheet of paper to reveal the design. The force with which the paper and stamp meet can leave indentations in the paper, giving letterpress prints a unique texture.

Litho printing is another technique Archivist use. This involves the image being placed on a plate which is then covered in ink and used for printing.

Average contents: 125 matches