From the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 5) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1885 - 1891

Editor: This small photographic print, from around the 1880s, is from a series of actress portraits, intended to be included in packs of Virginia Brights Cigarettes. What I find immediately striking is how intimate and knowing her gaze is. How would you interpret that, considering it’s an advertisement? Curator: The intimacy is, I think, very carefully constructed. Consider that this was the height of the Aesthetic Movement and the popularization of Japonisme. What is being sold here isn't just cigarettes but a lifestyle, a sensibility, a dream of beauty and exoticism embodied by this actress. Do you see echoes of the geisha in her presentation? Editor: I do! Now that you mention it, there is something of a conscious artifice to it all, and perhaps a projection of contemporary male desires of the time. How were images such as these originally used and viewed? Curator: Images such as these functioned as social currency and symbols of modernity. In this burgeoning age of celebrity culture, to collect these cards was to participate in, or at least spectate upon, the dramas and desires played out on the public stage. Editor: Fascinating! So, these seemingly simple portraits carry so much cultural weight, revealing not just individual faces but also societal aspirations and the rise of mass media. Curator: Precisely. These tiny windows offer glimpses into the collective imagination of the late 19th century, reflecting its evolving aesthetics and shifting cultural values. We can trace how advertising shapes and reflects society's desires and self-image through such commercial art forms.