Marie Wainwright, from the Actresses series (N246), Type 1, issued by Kinney Brothers to promote Sporting Extra Cigarettes 1888 - 1892

This small photographic card, printed by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, features actress Marie Wainwright as part of a promotional series for Sporting Extra Cigarettes. Produced during the late 19th century heyday of chromolithography and industrial printing, these cards were churned out en masse as promotional ephemera. The sepia tone and smooth surface belie the complex process of image capture, transfer to printing plates, and finally, mass production. Though seemingly a simple object, it encapsulates a period of profound change in visual culture, driven by new technologies and a burgeoning consumer economy. Consider the layers of labor embedded in this object: from the cultivation and processing of tobacco, to the photographers, printing press operators, and distributors involved in its creation and circulation. Even the actress herself becomes a commodity, her image divorced from her artistic practice and deployed to sell cigarettes. The card is a reminder that what we often consider 'high' art exists in constant dialogue with these more quotidian forms of visual culture.