Card Number 117, Minnie Palmer, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-6) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Duke Cigarettes 1880s

This promotional card for Duke Cigarettes, dating from around 1870-1920, features the actress Minnie Palmer. Here, Palmer’s attire – particularly her hat and stance – hints at a fascinating interplay between performance, identity, and the evolving image of women. Consider the hat, a recurring motif throughout art history. Often, it is a symbol of status and identity. Looking at the image, we might recall how similar hats appear on actresses on stage from centuries before. Similarly, the hands-on-hips stance projects a sense of self-assuredness, even defiance, seen in portraits of powerful figures across different epochs. This pose, a visual assertion of control, echoes through time, appearing in classical sculptures of deities to modern-day portraits of political leaders. It is a gesture embedded in our collective memory, a symbol of agency passed down through generations. The symbolic language of performance is far from linear; it circles back, reappears, and is constantly reinterpreted.