Charlotte Ray, from the Actresses series (N245) issued by Kinney Brothers to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1890

Curator: This captivating piece is a trade card from 1890 titled "Charlotte Ray, from the Actresses series (N245)," distributed by Kinney Brothers to promote their Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. It's an albumen print, currently held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: There’s such an ephemeral, ghostly quality to it. The sepia tones make it feel like a memory, something faded but fondly held. She looks almost dreamlike. Curator: Precisely. Trade cards like these were a clever way to market consumer goods. They mass-produced idealized images, linking their product to desirable aspirations—fame, beauty, celebrity. Here, we see Charlotte Ray, a stage actress, rendered in a fashionable portrait style. The printing process itself—the albumen print—would have allowed for a good level of detail for the time, enhancing its appeal. Editor: It's also striking how composed she is, almost serene, yet her eyes seem to hold a touch of melancholy. Perhaps that’s just the era’s aesthetic, but I sense something deeper. The whole piece has a strange nostalgia; it almost yearns for a time already gone, even back then. A woman promoting cigarettes: a product responsible for suffering, yet here immortalised in an almost angelic fashion. What contradictions were these artisans blind to in the making? Curator: And we shouldn’t forget the material context. The card is small, meant to be collected and traded, not hung on a wall as fine art. Its value lies in its circulation, its ability to disseminate an image widely. The availability of affordable materials like paper and photographic chemicals made this all possible. Think about the labour involved, from the photographer to the factory workers producing the cigarettes! It all collapses into this tiny artifact. Editor: A little token that is a reminder of human labour! Still, looking at her image, I keep circling back to the actress herself, rendered through the gaze of commerce and nostalgia. It feels like we are reaching out, grasping, touching and knowing nothing... she remains lost in that antique sepia-toned fog, like a wisp of smoke. Curator: Well, hopefully this dialogue illuminates her a bit further in relation to a complex world of objects, processes, and relations, and to all that enabled it!