The Unión Española de Explosivos (Spanish Explosives Factory) started a cultural sponsorship which continues to exist today. The goal of the factory was to offer a calendar intended to spread the activities and image of the company. Every year they commissioned a representative painter from of the time to create the images for the calendar. There were only two rules to be respected: the images had to be figurative paintings and related to the company’s activities.

Julio Romero de Torres painted some images for the above-mentioned calendars, influenced by the French movement which used the poster as advertising strategy. He painted perfectly the proposed subject known as Mujeres de explosivos (Women of explosives) representing the conservative mentality of that time. The female protagonists of those posters, such as Encendiendo la mecha (Lighting the Match) from 1924, La escopeta de caza (Hunting rifle) from 1929, Mujer con Pistola (Woman with Pistol) from 1925 and El cohete (The Rocket) from 1931, were some of his favorite models of those years.

In the first poster, Lighting the Match, the dancer Elisa Muñiz nicknamed Amarantina, smiles while she lights a cartridge of dynamite with a cigarette. The entrance of a mine appears in the background of the painting with some explosives already lighted.

The modern attraction of the advertising poster fascinated the painter from his youth until his death (his last poster was published after his death).