Card Number 598, Miss Sutherland, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-3) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

Curator: This is Card Number 598 from the Actors and Actresses series, dating to the 1880s. It was produced by W. Duke, Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes. The Met houses the piece, which is a drawing rendered as a print derived from a photograph. Editor: It's striking. There's a deliberate artifice, isn't there? The pose, the overt eroticism. But something also feels almost...spectral about it. Curator: The "actress" Miss Sutherland, I think her name was, conforms to then-contemporary ideals, certainly. The tight corsetry emphasized by this revealing costume created an extremely popular, very particular kind of female shape, one deemed incredibly attractive. This aesthetic was highly curated by commercial interests. Editor: And the costuming, that theatrical feathered headdress contrasted with...so little else. How potent these kinds of hyper-stylized, almost abstracted depictions became within the popular imagination. You find these sorts of portraits repeated again and again; what continuities and evolutions might those repetitions show us? What collective fantasies were being nurtured? Curator: These cards had real value as collectibles. This kind of commercial artwork functioned socially to cement societal values through visual rhetoric and also provided access to burgeoning entertainment, making figures of popular culture very present. Editor: Certainly. Even a symbol of pleasure such as Cross-Cut Cigarettes can communicate broader themes of desire and luxury while also subtly normalizing restrictive ideals of feminine beauty. It’s about much more than what’s depicted, isn’t it? It is how those depictions shape and get re-shaped across culture. Curator: Exactly. And I think focusing on the visual rhetoric inherent within such seemingly minor works allows one to glean the implicit messages concerning desirability in a society. It is potent! Editor: Absolutely! Now, if we reflect a moment, the photograph becomes this almost totemic artifact...a potent index of cultural forces that operated on both Miss Sutherland and audiences themselves. Thank you, these commercial images open interesting new interpretations of desire and representation in society.