Catherine II, Russia, from Leaders series (N222) issued by Kinney Bros. 1888

This small chromolithograph of Catherine the Second of Russia was made by Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company sometime between 1869 and 2011. It belongs to a series of “leaders” trading cards inserted in cigarette packets. The image deploys visual cues common to the European portrait tradition, such as the laurel wreath and the crown. We might ask, however, how these symbols operate in the context of a tobacco product made for mass consumption in the United States. Catherine, who ruled Russia in the 18th century, was an advocate of enlightened absolutism and was famous for her patronage of the arts and sciences. But she also suppressed peasant uprisings and expanded serfdom. To understand the appeal of this image, we might turn to archives of advertising history and the history of collecting. By what processes did historical figures come to be associated with particular kinds of commodities? How did these portraits shape popular perceptions of the past?