Rope Walking, from the Gymnastic Exercises series (N77) for Duke brand cigarettes 1887

Curator: So, here we have a rather charming piece: "Rope Walking, from the Gymnastic Exercises series," created in 1887 for W. Duke, Sons & Co. Yes, the cigarette company. Editor: My initial impression? It feels fragile, almost melancholic. The pale colors, the tenuousness of the rope—it's a precarious existence, isn't it? All on a tiny cardboard rectangle, the scale is precious! Curator: Indeed. The drawing is colored pencil and print, intended as a collectible card slipped into packs of Duke cigarettes. It speaks volumes about how advertising engaged with popular culture at the time. High art aspirations and ephemeral marketing collide. Editor: That’s the intrigue right there! Cigarettes peddling…equilibrium. And look at the staging, the way the rope seems to almost unravel as we reach the very bottom margin. Curator: The subject’s gaze downward makes one wonder about the unseen net, or the very real possibility of a fall, if not physical then certainly metaphorical in its associations of balance in daily life. A rope walker performs incredible feats of daring, yet she is always close to disaster, a captivating analogy. Editor: And it also normalizes the female form by plastering her on products of tobacco consumption and leisure. She's athletic and yet still confined in all these lace trims, in such controlled lines. It's as if the act itself and the image become a tightrope walk. A careful balancing act. Curator: Well put! It underscores the complex relationship between labor, representation, and consumption during this period. The gymnastic series was clearly intended to uplift, and to equate the daring with the product. But at what cost? And it makes you think about production in total, the material production but the making of art as well. Editor: Absolutely. Everything boils down to an exchange; something offered, something consumed. Even art reduced to capitalist means. Though it must be noted the grace and the light here—an escape as much as she may embody constraint! Curator: It seems a meditation on the fleeting moment of control within a system driving mass appeal to cigarette purchasers; what a paradox for the ages! Editor: So there you have it: the tightrope between aspiration, art, and commerce, all balancing on a puff of smoke!