Sadie Martinot, from the Actors and Actresses series (N171) for Gypsy Queen Cigarettes 1886 - 1890

This small card featuring Sadie Martinot, from the Actors and Actresses series, was produced by Goodwin & Company. Notice the sepia tone gives the photograph a warm, nostalgic feel. The light softly illuminates Martinot’s face, directing our gaze to her upward glance. The composition is carefully structured: her delicate features are framed by the elaborate lace of her dress and the feathery headdress. This image draws on conventions of portraiture, yet its mass production as a cigarette card complicates its status. It operates as both art and advertising. The card’s function as a collectible promotes a new kind of consumer culture, where images circulate widely, divorced from their original context. In this way, mass media challenges fixed notions of value and representation, inviting us to reconsider how meaning is constructed and disseminated.