Lily Elton, from the Actresses series (N203) issued by Wm. S. Kimball & Co. 1889

Curator: Looking at this portrait, I get a very sepia-toned "What next?" sort of feeling. Editor: Right. Well, this is "Lily Elton, from the Actresses series (N203) issued by Wm. S. Kimball & Co." It's dated 1889 and currently held here at the Met. What strikes me is how it so bluntly advertises Kimball & Co. Cigarettes while presenting itself as a piece of art. Curator: Cigarette cards! How delightfully tawdry. I adore the chutzpah of putting actresses on smoking paraphernalia, talk about consumerism. And sepia always feels nostalgic, like looking back at a faded dream of stardom. There's something about her gaze—not quite confident, a little hesitant. Editor: Indeed, let's think about the material and process: a photograph, reproduced as a print, included in packs of cigarettes. These cards democratized image consumption, but they were also about associating glamour with tobacco. Think about the labor involved in producing these images on a mass scale and the raw materials sourced from all over the world! Curator: That makes me consider what the actress herself might have thought of it all! The staged backdrop—the raging sea, or stylized ocean waves. It’s quite performative; it's theater. She's literally on a stage, perched there! Almost melancholic, yet powerful despite her stillness. Editor: Melancholic, sure, but for whom? For the worker churning these images, for the actress selling her image, or for the consumer inhaling aspiration? I wonder, too, about the discarded cards, scattered and forgotten, turning celebrity into a form of disposable culture. What’s her cut? Probably next to nothing compared to Kimball's! Curator: Maybe the sadness I’m sensing is her realization of exactly that—a transaction. So perfectly manufactured, processed, used. I find that thought rather sad actually! It becomes, instead, a poignant, layered comment on aspiration and its ultimate hollowness. Editor: Agreed. Seeing how celebrity, commerce, labor and visual representation collides in this little print makes me realize the historical connection that we still engage in today. It makes you wonder, what objects will speak of our lives a hundred years from now?