Now this is a kind of companion to another Cavanders set, "Ancient Egypt" though this set was only ever issued in the standard size whereas the collector can visit Egypt in a small or a large sized format. There is another difference too, because all but two of the Egyptian pictures are on a golden background, not a silver one.
This leads me to a strange discovery, because the back frameworks are identical, which is odd, because it is a typical Egyptian frame, and not a very Chinese one. So I thought oh well they just used the same frame from the Egyptian artwork to save on money and time, but in actual fact they did not, for the Egyptian set was not just issued after the Chinese one, but two years after, in 1928.
Our original World Tobacco Issues Index tells us that Cavanders Ltd. was based in London and Glasgow, and was founded in 1775. It catalogues our Chinese set as simply :
ANCIENT CHINESE. Sm. Nd. (25) ... C48-11
By the way, card 11 in this set is also a dragon, and the text on that adds some relevant information for this week`s tale, by telling us that "The dragon is a familiar object in Chinese decoration and typifies all that is powerful and terrible. The Imperial dragon is armed with five claws on each of its four feet, and is used as an emblem by the Emperor`s family and by princes of the two highest ranks. The four clawed dragon is used by princes of the third or fourth class. The three clawed dragon is the one commonly used for decoration."