Lamprey Eel, from the series Fishers and Fish (N74) for Duke brand cigarettes 1888

Editor: This is "Lamprey Eel" by Knapp & Company, dating to 1888. It’s a lithograph, a print made for Duke brand cigarettes. It has a muted color palette and delicate lines, very tranquil in tone. I'm curious, what socio-historical contexts do you find most compelling in this image? Curator: The key is to understand this image not just as an isolated aesthetic object, but as a product of its time, deeply embedded in power structures. Cigarette cards like this, which feel almost quaint now, actively participated in shaping cultural values. Editor: Could you elaborate? Curator: Certainly. This image aestheticizes the natural world to promote a commodity—tobacco—drawing from the rising environmentalism and fascination with natural history, while normalizing its consumption. These images circulated widely, shaping perceptions of the natural world within specific social classes, promoting certain scientific narratives over indigenous knowledge. Editor: It's like nature is being packaged and sold along with the cigarettes. Curator: Precisely! Consider who created these images and for whom. Knapp & Company profited greatly, shaping consumer culture and influencing ecological perceptions. It’s an early example of corporate influence intertwined with artistic representation, constructing desires, dictating narratives about nature, and even influencing which ‘facts’ circulated about specific species. Who decides what counts as knowledge and how is it disseminated? That’s the question we should be asking. Editor: That completely changes how I see this seemingly simple image! Thanks! Curator: And thank you for raising the initial questions! By thinking about the historical production and distribution, we are challenging ourselves to read images actively, understanding them as complex carriers of ideology, not just pretty pictures.