Card Number 326, Christine Mertins, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-3) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

This card of Christine Mertins, from the Actors and Actresses series, was produced by W. Duke, Sons & Co. The image shows Mertins, a performer, in what appears to be a bathing costume of the period. Note the striped pattern, and the overall sense of leisure and modernity. These patterns echo across time, evoking nautical themes from earlier eras, but here applied to the modern world of leisure and entertainment. Consider the Venus Pudica pose—Mertins’ hand demurely resting on her hip. This gesture of modesty recurs throughout art history, a primal defense against the objectifying gaze. But here, its effect is subverted. This pose, once a symbol of purity, is now a marketing tool, reflecting the evolving cultural attitudes towards the female form, and our subconscious attraction to it. The enduring motifs of art history constantly resurface, reformed to fit the ever-changing currents of time.