Hora De Brien, from National Dances (N225, Type 2) issued by Kinney Bros. 1889

Curator: Isn't she fabulous? I mean, she *moves* doesn't she? It’s got that charming folk art thing going on, the colors singing off the print. Editor: The lithography itself is rather striking given its mass-produced intent. The colors pop with incredible vibrancy, yet it’s clearly on a rather humble substrate, isn’t it? Like cardboard stock? Curator: Exactly! We're looking at "Hora De Brien," part of the National Dances series, created by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company around 1889. I can almost smell the tobacco, can’t you? Editor: Indeed. So, this wasn't intended as “art” with a capital A, but as an ephemeral premium, distributed with tobacco products. This begs the question: who are these figures really for? Curator: That's where it gets juicy, doesn't it? These little cards acted like windows. Kinney was giving their customer, probably male, working class, a peek into “other” cultures… but it’s a fantasy! It's all costume and flattened representation. Editor: Absolutely. And what kind of labor produced this? How many hands touched it? From the artist(s) who designed the image, to the workers on the printing presses and those packaging the tobacco...It all underlines this sort of… distance, really. The real 'Hora de Brien' culture becomes a commodity. Curator: Almost a dance performed for profit. She’s suspended in mid-twirl, this “Brien” woman—who may never have even existed!—offered as an exotic daydream, colorful bait for your everyday smoker. Makes you wonder about the narratives we buy into so easily, doesn’t it? Editor: Precisely. And those narratives are, of course, embedded in the materiality itself. This is a tangible example of culture consumed, not just observed. It brings art history, in the classical sense, into a gritty consumer reality. Curator: It does force one to wonder at how the narratives attached to art itself become a commodity. A fleeting moment caught in mass production for wider circulation! Editor: It seems fitting, ultimately. The temporality of the dance now frozen inside of a momentary pause between puffs.