Card 398, Miss Balse, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 1) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1885 - 1891

Curator: This dainty card, a vintage advertisement actually, features Miss Balfe. Part of the Actors and Actresses series for Virginia Brights Cigarettes, it was produced between 1885 and 1891 by Allen & Ginter. Editor: She’s lovely! So refined, and…distant somehow. Looking over her shoulder like that, the muted tones lending her a ghostly aura. I feel like she's guarding a secret, a glimpse into a bygone era. Curator: The profile view, her parasol, the backdrop, all give it that distinctly Japonisme feel, which was really hitting its stride then. This was mass produced of course, chromolithography. An inexpensive luxury inserted into cigarette packs. Editor: Interesting, the tension between luxury and disposable culture, very potent. She has that little cigarette holder… there’s a defiant gaze that peers from over her shoulder. A modern woman masked in Victorian propriety, maybe? Curator: I wonder what her story really was. Allen & Ginter featured these performers to add a touch of glamour and intrigue to their brand. To look like this woman perhaps, beautiful, independent, she looks powerful. And they picked her carefully because she appealed to a broader, modern market. Editor: Broad appeal masked by class privilege. It makes me wonder about the power dynamics, her agency, commodified as she is. Did she even consent to her image being used like this, mass produced to push tobacco onto the population. But yet she gazes as us with defiance! Curator: An important point, definitely. I think we can look at it another way: despite the medium, or rather because of it, we have these small pieces that grant insight, an almost accessible snapshot into the everyday fascinations of that era, through mass media and celebrity culture! Editor: Indeed! So, the image is more than an advert. It captures a particular desire, and a tension, a pivotal historical moment through the guise of delicate beauty. A very subversive lady! Curator: Exactly! Seeing it like that casts a new light entirely. It brings her, and her time, alive.