Mary Read, The Duel, from the Pirates of the Spanish Main series (N19) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes 1886 - 1891

Curator: This work, hailing from between 1886 and 1891, presents "Mary Read, The Duel" as part of the Pirates of the Spanish Main series. It's a chromolithograph—a colored print—originally produced by Allen & Ginter for their cigarette cards and can be found at The Met. Editor: Right away, there's something playfully unsettling about the rosy cheeks and sidelong glance of Mary, set against the backdrop of...a lethal duel. It's a juxtaposition that really sings of hidden depths. Curator: Precisely. Allen & Ginter, while ostensibly advertising tobacco, tapped into a broader cultural fascination with figures like Mary Read. The composition itself—the foregrounded portrait against the diminutive, receding duel scene—establishes a hierarchy. It begs the viewer to question narrative perspective and authority. Editor: The limited palette almost makes it feel like a dream. It's as if she's peering into this world of conflict from a calmer space, yet she’s very much implicated by the title itself and that suggestive, half-smirk. Are we watching a scene, or is she remembering something? Curator: A valid point. The Japonisme influence is notable, both in the flat rendering of space and in the almost stylized depiction of the duel itself. Consider it as an exercise in strategic framing rather than documentary realism. Editor: Makes you wonder, doesn't it, about the layers of image and identity being carefully curated by these cigarette card publishers? This small drawing feels monumental with all this unpacking. I guess I'll never think about tobacco cards in the same way. Curator: Nor should we. Each component adds to a wider cultural script concerning adventure, gender roles, and modes of storytelling itself. Editor: Definitely a swashbuckler in disguise. On so many levels, so I wonder if, she wasn't, I can almost feel the smoke of that cigarette with her image stamped all over. The smoke makes the history somehow. It has me.