Card Number 212, Marie Burroughs, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-7) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Duke Cigarettes 1880s

Curator: This sweet portrait has a wistful elegance that pulls me in. The soft sepia tones lend a dreamlike quality, don’t you think? Editor: It's interesting. The “dreamlike quality”, as you say, contrasts pretty starkly with the very practical purpose of this image, which is “Card Number 212, Marie Burroughs” from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-7) by W. Duke, Sons & Co. from the 1880s. A classic advertisement. Curator: An advertisement, yes, but imagine finding this tucked inside a cigarette pack! A little gem featuring a star of the stage… there's still an air of mystery. Editor: For me, it’s the materiality of this “gem” that intrigues. Photography reproduced as a printed card… an item meant to be collected, traded, possibly even discarded. Consider the process. It begins with capturing Burroughs' image, which is then transferred, mass-produced, and distributed through consumer culture. It really compresses high and low art. Curator: Absolutely, the accessibility changes everything! Still, she has a captivating profile, her gaze seems lost in thought. Do you see the subtle lighting playing on her cheekbone? A touch of genuine artistry sneaks in regardless, or is that just me projecting again? Editor: Perhaps. I mean, the intention here wasn’t necessarily high art. The cigarette company employed photographic and printing technologies available at the time for a purely commercial project. What makes it stand out to our eyes, viewing it now, could simply be its survival, and the slow accumulation of meaning around it over time. Curator: That's true... we're viewing it through layers of time, like looking through a tinted glass. It transforms from a simple advert into a relic with stories it doesn't even know it holds. I see so much in that gentle turn of her head… nostalgia mostly, and the phantom scent of tobacco. Editor: And I see the tangible realities of labor and commerce intertwined with celebrity. Even now, the card draws us in, not just through nostalgic whimsy, but through the enduring impact of mass-produced images, how they capture and shape our perceptions of beauty and fame.