[Actresses dancing with tambourines], from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-8) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Duke Cigarettes 1890 - 1895

This small card, produced around 1870 by W. Duke, Sons & Co. to promote Duke Cigarettes, depicts two actresses mid-dance, each brandishing a tambourine. The tambourine—a simple instrument, yet rich in cultural echoes. In ancient Greece, it was the instrument of Dionysian revels, a symbol of ecstatic release. Across the Mediterranean, it appears in rituals of fertility and celebration. Observe how the women hold the tambourines aloft, their arms mirroring gestures found in ancient depictions of maenads, the female followers of Dionysus, lost in frenzied dance. This gesture, this echo of antiquity, reminds us that cultural memory is not linear. It resurfaces, transformed yet familiar, carrying with it the emotional and psychological charge of centuries past. The tambourine’s jingle, then and now, stirs something within us—a primal connection to joy and abandon.