Card Number 62, Ida Vernon, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-6) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Duke Cigarettes 1880s

Editor: We’re looking at "Card Number 62, Ida Vernon," a piece from the 1880s, part of the "Actors and Actresses" series by W. Duke, Sons & Co., who made Duke Cigarettes. It looks like a print of a photograph or drawing, maybe? It's sepia-toned and pretty faded. I find the subject’s distant gaze kind of melancholy. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Oh, melancholy is a brilliant word for it. To me, these cards are like little windows into a fleeting past, whispers of forgotten fame. It's more than just a portrait; it's a piece of marketing, an artifact of a time when actors were these glamorous, almost mythical figures. It's sepia now, but it once was vibrant, distributed everywhere, a reminder of what it meant to participate in daily popular culture. It's interesting how commercial objects acquire, through use and entropy, an accidental beauty that moves me, like faded pressed flowers tucked between the pages of a much-loved novel. What does her expression suggest to you, aside from melancholy? Editor: Hmm, perhaps a sort of weary resignation? Like she knows she's being commodified. Is it strange to feel that for a portrait on a cigarette card? Curator: Not at all! That tension – between art, celebrity, and commerce – is precisely where the interest lies, isn’t it? The ephemerality of fame, captured in a disposable object meant to be consumed and discarded. We gaze into her eyes, searching for…what, exactly? A connection? A secret? Editor: I never thought about it that way. The cigarette card elevates something very temporary and almost throws it away. Curator: Precisely. The whole thing makes me strangely nostalgic and a little sad, which may say more about me than about Ida Vernon! Thank you for the fascinating insight. Editor: Thanks, it’s great to delve into this history through a small but telling item.