Clematis: Mental Beauty, from the series Floral Beauties and Language of Flowers (N75) for Duke brand cigarettes 1892

This is "Clematis: Mental Beauty," a chromolithograph card created by the American Tobacco Company, part of the Floral Beauties and Language of Flowers series. The card presents a portrait of a young woman encircled by clematis flowers. Notice the arrangement: the woman's face, framed by blossoms, creates a visual harmony. The textures, achieved through chromolithography, give a soft, almost dreamlike quality to the image. Such cards, though seemingly simple, reveal a complex interplay of visual elements and cultural codes. The flowers, acting as signs, contribute to a coded language, and the semiotic system in which flowers convey specific meanings intersects with the portrait. The card is not just an image but a cultural artifact, inviting us to decode its meanings within the historical and social context of its creation. This is a small but potent example of how visual culture can be understood through its structure and symbolic language.