Card Number 744, Lulu Hesse, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-3) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

Editor: Let's take a closer look at "Card Number 744, Lulu Hesse," a portrait from the Actors and Actresses series made in the 1880s by W. Duke, Sons & Co., now residing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's a small printed photograph used to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes. There's something about the direct gaze that is rather captivating! What draws your attention most when you see this piece? Curator: The fact that we’re even looking at it now, generations later, because it was tucked inside a cigarette pack… there's a kind of beautiful accident to that, isn't there? Like a message in a bottle from a bygone era, still bobbing along the waves of time. And think about Lulu Hesse herself. This fleeting moment, designed to sell smokes, becomes something far more enduring: a question. Who was she? What was her story? I think this photo has a strange aura of timelessness. Editor: That makes me consider the commercial purpose of this piece—was Lulu Hesse famous at the time, which could benefit cigarette sales? Curator: Possibly. But fame then wasn’t what it is today. More like a localized sparkle, a flicker in the vaudeville circuit, perhaps. The real star here might be the idea of celebrity itself, and how fleeting it can be. We are lured into smoking these "Cross-Cut Cigarettes", because a star seemingly endorses it, and now we, so long later, ask who she was. A curious immortality, wouldn’t you agree? Editor: Very much! I didn't think of it that way at all, but the commercial context has certainly given the portrait a kind of accidental longevity, turning Lulu into something of an enigma. Curator: Exactly! Isn't it funny how an object made for such a temporary purpose can reveal so much about a different world. Editor: Yes, that's amazing! It completely changed my view on this particular print. Thanks for illuminating that.