Aid-de-Camp, Italy, 1853 from the Military Series (N224) issued by Kinney Tobacco Company to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1888

This small card, “Aid-de-Camp, Italy, 1853,” was printed by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. It’s made of paper, likely printed using lithography, a technique that allows for mass production with fine detail. While seemingly distant from traditional art, this card reveals much about the interplay of commerce, culture, and craft. The image, finely printed, captures the uniform of an Italian military officer, meant to evoke a sense of aspiration in the smoker. The work involved in producing this card is considerable, from the initial design to the printing process, involving skilled labor. These cards, distributed with tobacco products, were essentially miniature artworks meant to entice consumers. They blur the line between art and advertising, showing how aesthetics could be harnessed to fuel the growth of the tobacco industry. This conflation challenges traditional art history categories, inviting us to consider the wider social context of image-making.