Louise Thorndyke, from the Actresses series (N245) issued by Kinney Brothers to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1890

Editor: This is Louise Thorndyke from the Actresses series, created around 1890 by the Kinney Brothers to advertise Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. It looks like a photograph with some drawing elements, a simple portrait on a small card. What's your take on it? Curator: I see a confluence of art, labor, and commerce deeply embedded in material conditions. This card wasn’t conceived as “high art,” but as a promotional object, a disposable artifact linked directly to the consumption of cigarettes. The production methods – photography, drawing, and especially the mass printing – reflect industrial capabilities transforming culture. Editor: So you're saying its value comes more from how it was made and used, rather than being aesthetically pleasing? Curator: Precisely. We must consider who produced the photographic image, who drew on it, who printed it, who consumed the cigarettes, and even the raw materials sourced to create the photograph, card and print, or grow the tobacco. Where were they based, who did the factories and processing farms employ, under what conditions, for what pay, to create what surplus of value? It existed as a piece of everyday life for late nineteenth century consumers, bound to systems of labor and capital. Its 'beauty' emerges from considering its relationship to those material conditions. How does that lens change your perspective on the piece? Editor: It really makes you think about how intertwined art, business, and society were even back then. I’m glad I understand how to consider those questions now. Curator: Indeed. Understanding art is understanding its place in the material world.