Card Number 45, Grace Wilson, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-2) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

This is a trade card, made by W. Duke, Sons & Co. in the United States around the turn of the century, as part of a series promoting Cross Cut Cigarettes. The image presents a staged, idealized vision of femininity. The card’s composition and the carefully chosen pose of Grace Wilson are designed to appeal to consumers, particularly men, associating the allure of actresses with the pleasure of smoking. The actress is presented as both respectable and playfully alluring, lifting her skirt to reveal striped stockings, a gesture that hints at the risqué while remaining within the bounds of early 20th-century propriety. The institutional context of advertising plays a crucial role here, shaping the production and reception of art. To fully understand this image, we can consult archives of advertising history, theatre ephemera, and social histories of gender and consumption. The meaning of art is contingent on its social and institutional context.