Card Number 608, Laura Burt, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-3) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

Editor: Here we have “Card Number 608, Laura Burt,” from the Actors and Actresses series made in the 1880s by W. Duke, Sons & Co. as an advertisement for Cross Cut Cigarettes. It's… certainly eye-catching. What's your take on this, from an artistic perspective? Curator: Ah, Laura Burt, forever immortalized by tobacco! It's a cheeky wink into the past, isn’t it? A snapshot of celebrity, commerce, and perhaps a dash of societal daring, all rolled into one tiny cardboard square. I’m drawn to how readily acceptable using a woman’s image was to advertise tobacco products at this time. Do you think it was meant to be empowering? Seductive? Maybe both? Editor: It’s interesting how this piece walks the line between promotion and objectification, the corseted figure posing next to the explicit advertisement below makes the artist's intention harder to read. Curator: Precisely! It invites us to question, doesn't it? Who was Laura Burt? Was she in on the joke? Did she have any agency in this transaction? And what did it *mean* to be an actress at the time, anyway? These pocket-sized portraits remind me of the transience of fame—and the ever-shifting values of society. Editor: So much to think about! I never would have considered those layers looking at this card on my own. It’s more complex than I initially thought. Curator: Art is a doorway; it's the starting point to reflect and re-imagine things. We look to connect, feel, resist or engage, but ultimately it makes us stop for a moment. Now, wouldn’t that be quite the feat for a little piece of vintage advertising?