White Rose (Rose, Madame Plantier), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes 1890

This small card, made around 1900 by Goodwin & Company, features a white rose for Old Judge Cigarettes. The rose, across cultures, signifies love, purity, and sometimes secrecy. But it’s the white rose that captures our gaze. Think of Botticelli’s Venus, born amidst roses, a symbol of divine love and beauty. Yet, the white rose, with its stark purity, carries a certain tension. In the Victorian era, it could mean a heart unacquainted with love, or even death. Here, the rose, though delicate, is a commercial symbol. It promises pleasure, subtly linking the flower's beauty with the fleeting enjoyment of a cigarette. The psychoanalyst might see a repressed desire, a longing for beauty and purity, masked by everyday indulgences. The rose, therefore, becomes a complex emblem of desire, memory, and cultural encoding, blossoming through time in myriad forms.