Card Number 707, Lucy Webb, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-7) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Duke Cigarettes 1880s

Editor: So, this is "Card Number 707, Lucy Webb," from the Actors and Actresses series, printed in the 1880s by W. Duke, Sons & Co., as a cigarette card! I find the sepia tones really give it an antique, almost ghostly feel. The image is… provocative, especially for its time, no? What strikes you about this image? Curator: Ghostly, indeed! More like a fleeting echo from a bygone era, whispered through sepia-toned secrets. Back then, nuditiy sold cigarettes and, in a wink-wink kind of way, alluded to "art." I imagine Lucy felt powerful, even if exploited in ways we wouldn't accept today. Look at how the artist frames her... what do *you* make of it? Editor: It is posed, a little forced. Like she's trying to be seductive, but maybe a bit uncomfortable? Curator: Precisely! Is it truly her pose, her power, her freedom… or something imposed? Or maybe a little of both, bubbling into a complex soup. I mean, how radical was it back then for *anyone* to be so visible, literally on display, pushing boundaries of polite society and selling vice all at once? Is Lucy a subject, or is she objectified for tobacco profit? Editor: That makes me rethink it entirely! Seeing her as complicit, reclaiming the narrative by making this about selling tobacco… Curator: Precisely! So much resides in that enigmatic gaze and slighty cheeky tilt of the head. And what of all of the nameless women whose bodies were sold on cigarette cards without any acknowledgment in history books? So many invisible stories embedded within. I find her to be truly fascinating in all of her complicated cultural milieu. Editor: Wow, I’m definitely looking at it differently now. Thanks for peeling back those layers! Curator: Absolutely, isn’t it delightful when a little faded card reveals entire forgotten universes? That’s why I am so fond of old relics and ghosts from the past.