Card 777, Annie Summerfield, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 2) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1885 - 1891

Curator: Here we have a small piece of ephemera that offers a window into the world of late 19th-century celebrity culture. This is card number 777 from the Actors and Actresses series for Virginia Brights Cigarettes, it features Annie Summerfield and was created between 1885 and 1891 by Allen & Ginter. Editor: It’s a beautiful object! I am immediately drawn to the faded sepia tones—almost like a watercolor, although I realize it’s a print. It’s quiet, reserved… and feels incredibly delicate. Curator: You're right to observe that watercolor effect; I see the influence there too. These cards, part of a larger set, were included in cigarette packs as collectibles, like little portable portraits of stage stars, intended to promote a consumer product. I suppose, on closer examination, you really see how consumerist impulses permeated every aspect of life back then! Editor: Absolutely! It speaks volumes about how actresses, or really women in general, were consumed, marketed, and essentially commodified at the time. We need to remember this was also a period where the emerging industrial class experienced unparalleled purchasing power—this object is an interesting reminder of it. It is a reminder of an aesthetic that fed a hunger and an ideology. Curator: And in her pose and attire, we see an ideal of beauty carefully constructed. The fringed embellishments on her garment, along with her netted sleeves, seem meticulously designed, almost trapping her image… like a fancy specimen in a glass jar, on sale at your local corner shop. I suppose there’s a bittersweet sense of controlled presentation to it. She doesn’t fully reveal herself, she performs herself, for commerce. Editor: What gets me, in regards to performance, is how the method of reproduction becomes its own stage. From the original photograph to the printing process—maybe lithography? The paper texture also adds its own layer to the portrait and presentation—almost as a palimpsest effect. It is both portrait and industrial object. Curator: And that’s the fascination—the tension between the intimate, or rather, the pretense of intimacy, and its blatant function as advertisement. What stories do you think it can hold and hide? How do our methods of interpretation expose one more than the other? I suppose they co-exist with it too… a hall of mirrors reflecting off each other. Editor: Absolutely, and that tension continues even today! I love thinking of it, this tiny printed rectangle, containing so many questions about consumption, performance, labor, and representation—a miniature cultural battlefield we can still dissect.