Card 575, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 2) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1885 - 1891

Curator: This is "Card 575" from the Actors and Actresses series. It’s an Allen & Ginter trade card, printed sometime between 1885 and 1891, currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: Wow, she seems…unenthused, doesn't she? It’s like she's stuck in a sepia-toned silent film and just waiting for her cue to exit. I wonder what her real story is? Curator: What’s fascinating here is the flattening effect. The photographic image has been printed onto a small card, presumably mass-produced. This takes a portrait, a representation of an individual, and turns it into a commodity, an object within a larger series. Editor: Yes, it’s weirdly objectifying. Like, here’s this person reduced to a promotional item for Virginia Brights cigarettes! She seems to have become an artifact of… something that no longer exists, this type of ephemeral entertainment. I almost want to cry about the passage of time! Curator: And yet, there's something enduring in that very act of collection. These cards offer us glimpses into forgotten figures, frozen moments in the theater or perhaps some form of live entertainment that, yes, we can never revive. The sepia tones emphasize the sense of distance but also provide a delicate warmth to the subject, this performer. Editor: Warmth...Yes, even the patterned textiles seem to share something in common with the subject: ornate decoration designed to disguise function and add just a touch of color in an otherwise lackluster existence. Curator: In viewing, one gets an awareness of how modes of representation—photography, printmaking—shaped perceptions of celebrity. This seemingly humble card unveils intricate relationships between image, commerce, and memory. Editor: All true, all true! Maybe it's not as sad as I first thought! But it makes you think, who immortalizes us now? Who will collect our images cast as a cigarette ad?!