Card Number 110, Geraldine Ulmer, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-1) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

Curator: So charming! Like stepping into an old photograph album… this is card number 110 from the "Actors and Actresses" series, made in the 1880s by Duke Sons & Co. to promote their Cross Cut Cigarettes. It features a portrait of Geraldine Ulmer, most likely achieved through photography and then reproduced as a print. Editor: She’s adorable! Like a summer afternoon distilled into a tiny sepia card. The kitty tucked into her arms--pure Victorian sweetness, yet there’s something edgy about the composition, those stalks of wheat thrusting upward. Almost aggressively pastoral! Curator: Exactly! The composition isn't merely decorative; the wheat, framing Ulmer, hints at Japonisme, the late 19th-century craze for Japanese art and design. Consider how the stalks mimic the linear quality of Japanese prints, creating depth while remaining assertively two-dimensional. Semiotically, we read the wheat as both backdrop and foreground. Editor: Semiotically? I just see an actress, Geraldine—I wonder who she was!—holding a grumpy-looking cat in a field. There's a tension. She's smiling, but that cat looks like it wants to bolt. What does that *mean*, in terms of...cigarette marketing? Curator: Aha! That tension is key! It signifies aspiration. Cigarettes, luxury, and association with popular actresses all create a desire that might lead the consumer to purchase. The cat, though perhaps “grumpy,” introduces an element of domesticity and intimacy, normalizing Ulmer. And Ulmer normalizing smoking through association. It speaks volumes about society at the time. Editor: Maybe it's simpler. People like cats. They like pretty ladies. They want to feel fancy. The advertisers slap it all together to convince them to buy tobacco. Though I grant you, the execution is really lovely, the gradations of tone so subtle, despite it being a mass-produced piece. Almost dreamlike, this sepia filter. You forget what cigarettes even are. Curator: A poignant observation. The interplay between dream and reality is essential here. It is also, critically, successful. Editor: Well, whether its art or advertisement, somebody wanted me to pick up smoking from it. Now all I want to do is buy a cat. Curator: A fitting tribute, I’d say, to Geraldine Ulmer.