Mlle. Naya, from the Actresses series (N245) issued by Kinney Brothers to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1890

Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company produced this promotional card for Sweet Caporal Cigarettes, featuring Mlle. Naya. She stands as a figure of playful defiance, complete with devilish horns, wings, and a mischievous gaze. The image strikes me. Note the figure’s attire, which merges the tantalizing with the sinister. The horns and wings, symbols long associated with pagan deities and later, Christian demons, suggest a complex interplay between temptation and moral caution. This iconography has ancient roots, appearing in Mesopotamian art with horned deities, and evolving through the ages into the medieval depictions of demons as tempters of the soul. Consider how these symbols echo through time. The figure, a performer, embodies a transformation, a layering of meaning onto the classical archetype of the alluring temptress. It is a cultural palimpsest where ancient fears and desires are continually rewritten.