Actress resting head on hands, from Stars of the Stage, Fourth Series (N132) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Honest Long Cut Tobacco 1892 - 1893

This small card, printed by Duke Sons & Co. around 1888, features an actress advertising Honest Long Cut Tobacco. It's a lithograph, meaning the image was chemically applied to a stone or metal plate, then printed in multiple colors. Look closely, and you’ll see a fine dot pattern. This was an ingenious way to achieve shading and color variation without hand-painting each card. Mass production was the name of the game here. These cards were cheap to produce, and a savvy way to promote a product – far removed from the world of “high art.” Yet, lithography itself required skilled labor. Artisans carefully transferred images and mixed inks. The very fact that such care was taken speaks to the power of the celebrity image even then, and its usefulness in getting consumers to buy in. So, the next time you see something like this, remember it’s not just a pretty picture. It's also a little record of how industry, art, and labor came together at the turn of the century.