[Ballerina], from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-8) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Duke Cigarettes 1890 - 1895

Editor: This is “[Ballerina], from the Actors and Actresses series,” made by Duke Sons & Co. sometime between 1890 and 1895. It’s a photograph that feels really posed, almost like a stiff imitation of Degas. What strikes you about this piece? Curator: It speaks of an interesting conflation. Note how photography, here, is employed not as a mirror to reality but to capture a constructed ideal – the ballerina. An ideal manufactured and consumed via mass media: these cigarette cards. Doesn't that conjure a feeling of… commodification, perhaps? Ballet as high art, distilled into a collectible? Editor: I guess I hadn’t thought about the cigarette card context. So, the ballerina isn't just a dancer, she's also…a product? Curator: Precisely! And think about the semiotics of ballet itself. The delicate movements, the controlled grace – these were powerful visual signifiers in the late 19th century. What did they communicate to consumers? Is it elegance? Status? Desire? Consider that the receiver of this imagery is likely far removed from the high-art world. How are *they* interpreting it? Editor: So it's more about what the ballerina *represents* than the skill of the dancer. It makes you think about the whole world these were circulating in. Curator: Exactly! And the act of collecting— of owning— such images becomes part of the narrative. A symbol, perhaps, of aspiration and belonging in a rapidly changing society. What do you make of that interplay? Editor: That actually gives me a whole new way to look at these old images. It’s more complex than I initially thought! Thanks for unpacking that. Curator: My pleasure! It's in those layers of cultural meaning that art truly speaks.