Spain, from the Races of Mankind series (T181) issued by Abdul Cigarettes 1881

Curator: Look at this striking piece—a lithograph simply titled "Spain," part of the "Races of Mankind" series issued by Abdul Cigarettes back in 1881. It’s currently held here at the Met. Editor: My first impression? She has a very porcelain doll-like quality. The cool palette softens the high societal standing you assume she represents. Curator: It's intriguing, isn't it? The lithograph would have been printed as a giveaway for cigarettes, revealing much about the social dynamics of the late 19th century. Cigarette cards served as a marketing strategy to promote the cultural phenomenon, to teach the world about other societies through these cards. Editor: Fascinating that these objects were meant to be fleeting, disposable. Now, a museum piece! What narratives do you suppose are contained in such simple object? It makes one wonder, how consciously these representations were deployed in marketing efforts. It makes me wonder what marketing tools would compare to today's modern society. Curator: Indeed, and what makes the work is that it's so conventional. Yet, beneath that lovely, serene veneer of 'Spain' is an intricate game of global hierarchy being represented and, of course, consumed with every cigarette. Editor: Thinking about this image being a commodity inserted into everyday life does change how one understands it as art. The exotic and accessible portrayal becomes a part of the colonial machine, the soft, romanticised style masking what exactly? Curator: I agree completely. These images were carefully created to invoke an image of cultural harmony, a carefully controlled and constructed reality, to mask inequalities of colonial power and imperial ambition. It forces us to ask whose 'mankind' were these races categorized within? Editor: This encounter gives me pause. I’ll certainly look at images in advertising differently going forward, but especially from that time, knowing these seductive portraits, seemingly innocent, circulated within a much larger theater. Curator: Precisely, I’ll hold onto this idea of marketing’s long lasting role within global societies.