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

Curator: This sepia photograph captures Mlle. Mangin, part of the "Actresses" series by Wm. S. Kimball & Co. from 1889. It's now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: The print's a fascinating artifact of a bygone era—small, mass-produced... immediately, it strikes me as embodying a romanticized depiction of labor and spectacle intertwined. Curator: The imagery of the actress as domestic, complete with her broom, does feel like a calculated construction. I am drawn to her eyes, though. She seems complicit in a performance—is she meant to be the ideal of femininity made accessible, someone who also takes care of household tasks? Editor: Precisely. It speaks volumes about late 19th-century commodification and aspiration, a paper dream distributed via cigarette packets. Note how the texture gives it away, though, revealing its base origins. Curator: The use of photography mixed with print certainly elevates this above the common cigarette card. It gives a sense of aspiration. Yet what symbolism do you find there in portraying someone whose occupation is theatre holding something like a stage prop? The broom and striped apron transform her to something humble yet vaguely exotic at the same time. Editor: Right! A faux pastoral scene behind her, alluding to a connection with land, even the artifice enhances the marketing—portraying this "ordinary" worker but making a rare form of artwork available for trade, as she performs and represents domesticity. It's not a coincidence that cigarettes provided momentary access and social connection like that of her play! Curator: Her performative image would have resonated deeply, becoming an ideal of success mixed with beauty. There is such complex communication via consumer ephemera in ways that connect work to the soul, even then. Editor: Absolutely, these commercial artworks acted as very telling status symbols! Analyzing this photo as more than an actress, though, gives me an eye opening appreciation for cultural history, and social and labor structures! Curator: Indeed, there are so many layers to this unassuming collectible beyond just portraying Mlle. Mangin.