Description

Antique Laundry blue box - Helvetia Blue from Talissot & Chevalier in Dôle and Geneva 

Period: 1890-1905

Also known as Guimet Blue (its inventor, or washing blue, azur blue, etc.)

Box containing six gold-colored pieces of blue dye for bleaching laundry, resembling the iconography of Swiss coins and medals from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Your box will be sealed: never opened in 120 years

At a time when laundry was done by hand and then in a washing machine, it was sometimes difficult to achieve perfect whiteness. It was noticed that a very light blue dye could revive the whiteness of the laundry.

This is how azure blue or laundry blue was born.

In 1828, a chemist from Lyon, Jean-Baptiste Guimet, invented artificial ultramarine blue. This invention reduced the manufacturing cost tenfold, allowing for widespread use in France and also for export. This made Guimet a fortune, and he left us the superb Guimet Museum of Asian Art in Paris! The English also called it “Paris blue,” for example.

It was often sold in the form of blue balls in a box.

But here we are dealing with a true work of art, if I may say so.

The blue was compressed into the shape of a 5-centime coin and bronzed: the manufacturer compressed it with bronze or brass powder to give the illusion of a real coin! The blue color shows through the gilding. 

At the end of the 19th century, there was a desire to ennoble industrial products by giving them the appearance of precious objects, hence the imitation of coins here.

Very aesthetic but also practical, as it prevents the blue powder from staining your fingers when you pick it up.

The product was extremely well designed and crafted for a simple blue washing tablet!

These coins are impossible to find today.

Beautiful blue and gold illustration on the box

Box dimensions: 8x5cm Coin diameter: 3.5cm