Alex Martins, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 1) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1885 - 1891

Curator: Let's turn our attention to a curious artifact: "Alex Martins, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 1) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes," dating from around 1885 to 1891. Editor: It’s so unassuming! This little card, with its sepia tones and slight imperfections, has such a captivating, delicate melancholy to it. Curator: Well, yes! These cards, made by Allen & Ginter, were originally included in cigarette packs. We often frame paintings and sculpture as ‘high art,’ while something like this—a mass-produced collectible—ends up getting ignored. But look closer. Consider the labor: the photographers, the printers, the factory workers… Editor: I suppose that romantic sadness I feel isn't so spontaneous. The choice of rendering Alex Martins in monochrome, its almost ghost-like appearance, might say more about that era, maybe it implies some sort of ephemeral beauty or fleeting celebrity. Curator: Exactly. These weren’t considered particularly precious objects at the time, more like advertising ephemera. It's easy to see the card merely as an advert—an item for consumption, something cheap and disposable that circulated widely through a vast commercial system. And consider the subject, a person connected with entertainment: the tobacco helps to enjoy it better. Editor: In many ways it's a simple portrait drawing with photographic methods, made with ink over some sort of printing. She becomes this delicate dream and an advertisement, as those notions feel so contrary. Now I wonder what Alex Martins herself thought of it all. Did she get a lifetime supply of cigarettes, maybe? Curator: Perhaps, or nothing at all. We have a tantalizing trace of her now, preserved only because of a very material, commercial endeavor. Editor: Looking at the print from this new angle, I find that I'm feeling that haunting delicate image, maybe just a bit different. Curator: Agreed. Its survival and how we frame it, really, makes all the difference in what story we tell ourselves.