The first smoke. All wrong 1870

This lithograph by Currier and Ives depicts a young boy, visibly unwell, having his first experience with tobacco. The cigar becomes a potent symbol of adulthood, yet here, it mocks the boy's naive attempt to cross the threshold. The melancholic pose of the boy, hand on his head and a look of utter disappointment, echoes poses of introspection and suffering found in religious iconography and classical art. We can see echoes of the pensive philosopher or even the suffering Christ, but here, the gravitas is comically undercut. Throughout history, the adoption of adult habits by children has symbolized both innocence lost and the inevitable march of time, often tied to anxiety and the passage of time, revealing our collective subconscious fear of aging and decay.