From the Actresses series (N57) promoting Our Little Beauties Cigarettes for Allen & Ginter brand tobacco products 1890

Editor: Here we have "From the Actresses series (N57) promoting Our Little Beauties Cigarettes for Allen & Ginter brand tobacco products," created around 1890. It's a pencil and print work, now at the Met. It's such an odd combination of things. The sepia tones and soft rendering give a vintage, nostalgic feel, yet it's an advertisement for tobacco using "little beauties". What do you make of it? Curator: Well, isn’t she something? There’s this palpable sense of, I don’t know, wistful innocence meeting…commerce? I find it really hard to unsee what's happening. See how that dreamy gaze is offset by the incredibly calculated text that sells the cigarettes? Do you think, that it reveals some of the hypocrisy of the time, using this image of innocence to hawk an ultimately destructive product? What do you make of the text? Editor: It’s such a blatant objectification. The woman feels very separate from the brand itself, only existing to further its reach. I am also drawn to the title though, implying that there is a whole host of similar images and themes present. Curator: Right! The "Actresses Series". Tobacco cards were wildly popular, basically baseball cards but for sophisticated vices! Each card came with a pack of cigarettes and could be collected. It feels kind of like a proto-Instagram influencer move, but for… nicotine. You think about that and you realize a commentary on the commodification of beauty can co-exist within this medium of a capitalist, predatory system. It does offer a curious study. What do we take from this work today? Editor: The way you framed it adds layers, definitely. From the predatory nature of commodification and hyper-consumption to the naivete of the depicted beauty and how all things intertwine so violently. Thank you. Curator: I loved bouncing all those themes back and forth. The more sinister readings certainly offer new depth. I shall see this cigarette ad through such newly bespectacled eyes forevermore.