2nd Belooch Regiment, Ind. Conting't, England, 1879, from the Military Series (N224) issued by Kinney Tobacco Company to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1888

This small card, made by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company in 1879, was printed to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. Chromolithography, the printing process, was a relatively new technology at the time, using multiple stones to apply different colors to the paper surface. The result is a vibrant image. It depicts a soldier of the 2nd Belooch Regiment, part of the British Indian Army. The card’s value, of course, isn't in fine art, but in the way it reflects Victorian consumer culture. Cigarette cards like this one were essentially miniature advertisements, designed to be collected and traded. The printing method allowed for mass production, and it was relatively inexpensive. Consider, though, the labor involved in the entire process: from the factory workers producing the cigarettes, to the artists designing the cards, to the consumers buying the product. This seemingly simple image is tied to wider social issues of labor, politics, and consumption, revealing complex relationships between commerce, artistry, and imperial power.