Card Number 647, Miss Lehery, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-3) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

Editor: So, this is card number 647, featuring Miss Lehery, from the Actors and Actresses series made by Duke Sons & Co. in the 1880s, intended as a promotional item for Cross Cut Cigarettes. It appears to be a photograph, maybe with some drawing elements. What jumps out to me is the composition - how the subject is framed and the soft lighting. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Precisely, framing and lighting establish its intrinsic character. The artist directs our gaze, structuring our perception. Observe how the profile, carefully positioned, generates a dialogue between the positive and negative space, each defining the other. Semiotically, what does that absent space beyond her gaze signify? Editor: Hmmm, perhaps longing, or aspiration? I guess I'm still stuck on how the portrait is also an advertisement. It seems to undermine the artistry of it. Curator: Does it? Consider the interplay between art and commerce, here. Duke Sons & Co. employed representational strategies to not only promote but also transform, recontextualize, and thereby aestheticize their product. The formal qualities – the lithographic print, the subtle tonal gradations – are strategically deployed. The 'commodity' of beauty intertwines with the commodity for sale. Editor: I see what you mean. The very form becomes part of the marketing message. What do you make of her gaze being directed up and away? Is there any sort of semiotic messaging with the upward and off-center direction? Curator: This invites considerations beyond mere representational accuracy, it moves toward something more abstract. A structuralist approach will emphasize the signifying systems and how such codes work to create meaning. That upward gaze suggests transcendence, perhaps elevating the everyday – even something as commonplace as cigarettes. Editor: This has given me a whole new way of appreciating even something as seemingly simple as an advertising card! I didn't think about space or how we're supposed to think about the messaging behind the product as a form of artistry and form. Curator: Exactly, we find artistic intent in many contexts. Close observation, focused on the artwork's intrinsic qualities, can reveal new meanings, and, hopefully, generate intellectual discourse.