Card Number 241, Dupree, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-2) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

Curator: This is Card Number 241, depicting Dupree, from the Actors and Actresses series. It was issued by Duke Sons & Co. in the 1880s to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes. The work combines elements of photography, drawing, and printmaking. Editor: What strikes me immediately is the slightly unsettling tonal range, the interplay of light and shadow rendering her form both present and a little ghostly. And that abrupt juxtaposition of the figure and the text! It is odd. Curator: Indeed. These cards, despite their commercial nature, offer fascinating insights into the cultural representation of entertainers during that era. The series sought to elevate these figures, imbuing them with a sense of celebrity and aspiration through mass production. Consider, for instance, how she is staged. What attributes does her presentation invoke? Editor: Well, the composition is rather basic. Her outfit, with the striped shorts, looks both playful and, dare I say, somewhat provocative for the time. The small drum could point to musical skill. There's a performative tension between simplicity and overt display here. It draws the eye with basic means. Curator: I think you’re right to see the playfulness. This simplicity would also enhance the symbolic dimension and its relation to theater culture, music hall performance, and also early commodity culture. The positioning, that drum—the card asks you to see a specific kind of figure on stage, literally as well as metaphorically on display, as one trades these cards or consumes these cigarettes. What meanings may this invoke, what messages are conveyed in each element of its form? Editor: True, these wouldn't exist without an entire system of signs propping them up. That "Cross Cut Cigarettes" imprint seems almost like an assertive defacement—an act upon the visual field itself that wants to anchor meaning, even to overwrite the portrayed starlet in a sense. I appreciate how bluntly it asserts the commercial function in the midst of artistic effort. Curator: Agreed. Looking at these commercial images today really reveals an immense cultural weight through visual symbolism. Editor: Exactly. In its formal simplicity, this cigarette card speaks volumes about the complexities of visual representation and commerce.