English Naval Officer, from World's Smokers series (N33) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes 1888

Curator: The jaunty self-assurance is captivating; it’s remarkable how much narrative punch this little card packs! Editor: You’re drawn to the fellow's confident air. I see cheap paper stock trying to mimic a gentrified etching – it’s a study in conflicting aspirations, wouldn’t you say? Let’s talk a little more about this piece. This is a print titled “English Naval Officer,” dating to 1888. It comes to us from the World's Smokers series produced by Allen & Ginter Cigarettes. Curator: Indeed! Cigarette cards functioned as miniature symbols, tiny windows onto a world of adventure and aspiration during a time of considerable colonial expansion. Allen & Ginter cleverly used images to associate their brand with desirable values like bravery, sophistication, and worldliness. That pith helmet and cigarette exude imperial swagger! Editor: Exactly, but let’s not forget the manufacturing process here! Allen & Ginter employed teams of artists and printers on tight deadlines churning out thousands of these cards. The appeal lay in the easy access to "high culture" they were granted through cheap industrial materials. Curator: Yes, that’s a valid point. What looks like nonchalance in the officer’s pose is really about mass production—images rapidly deployed to support empire. And for Allen & Ginter, the real meaning must have been increased sales, turning symbolic capital into literal profit. Editor: These materials and images had far reaching consequences. Think about it, a tiny cardboard rectangle circulated on an enormous scale. I also want to consider the skill involved in transferring what may have originated as painting, down into affordable print culture for wide scale consumption. It’s far removed from notions of artistic "genius." Curator: It is about collective dreaming more than individual creation. Looking at the semiotics involved here it becomes easier to see this portrait drawing, with all its coded cultural associations, becoming something different each time it circulates! Editor: Ultimately, these material objects acted as potent engines of capitalist expansion, cleverly masking their true purpose beneath a veneer of worldly charm. I like the term "coded cultural associations"—precisely what the manufacturing and printing was designed to achieve. Curator: A compelling piece that allows one to consider just how material production works alongside the construction of symbols. Editor: Precisely. By seeing both the tangible card and its ideological work we get the most complete image.