Card Number 35, Daisy Temple, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-2) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

Editor: This is card number 35, Daisy Temple, part of the Actors and Actresses series created in the 1880s by W. Duke, Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes. It's a drawing reproduced as a print, originally a photograph. What strikes me is the staged frivolity—how very… Victorian cigarette ad! What do you make of this piece, Professor? Curator: Oh, this little card transports me! Don't you find it charmingly absurd? Imagine: smoking, social status, and… Daisy Temple! It's Japonisme meeting the Gilded Age. Consider how Japanese art influenced Western artists and the decorative arts with its flattened perspective and embrace of the everyday—a far cry from academic painting. Yet here it is, repackaged to sell cigarettes. What story do you think Daisy herself might tell about being commodified like this? Editor: That's a really good question! It's weird to think that this idealized image was attached to something like cigarettes. There’s something almost predatory about it. I’d never considered that this kind of art had so much cultural baggage. Curator: Indeed! This card isn't just a pretty picture. It’s a time capsule brimming with social anxieties and aspirations, tucked away in the space between art and commerce. We often think of advertisements as something cheap and disposable, but isn’t there a kind of enduring power to it as a relic like this? Editor: Definitely. I'll never look at an old cigarette card the same way again! Thanks, that’s something I can explore further. Curator: My pleasure! Never underestimate the power of something so seemingly small.