Card Number 337, Emma Hanley, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-5) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cameo Cigarettes 1880s

Editor: This is card number 337 from the Actors and Actresses series, featuring Emma Hanley. It's from the 1880s, created by W. Duke, Sons & Co. as a promotional piece for Cameo Cigarettes. It’s an albumen print, so technically photography, though it feels closer to drawing somehow. I'm immediately struck by the subject's confident pose, though the old-timey filter is throwing me off. How would you interpret this work, coming at it from your expert perspective? Curator: Well, "confident" is a strong word, isn't it? I see a touch of defiance, maybe even a smidge of boredom. This isn’t high art in the traditional sense; it's ephemera, advertising! And consider, dear editor, how performance has been historically marketed. What's being sold here, really? Cigarettes, sure, but also...Emma Hanley, the idea of glamour. It's early advertising leveraging celebrity – imagine a 19th-century influencer campaign! Don't you think it’s cheeky that Duke is selling tobacco by showing Hanley draped like a roman goddess? Editor: Cheeky indeed! So you see it less as a celebration of the actress herself, and more as clever, albeit slightly…crass, marketing? I guess the direct advertisement at the bottom clinches that a bit. Curator: Exactly! Though it still hints at her appeal. Ask yourself, without the lettering, what would a viewer focus on? The power and strength of an actress, but ultimately a fantasy created for consumption – much like the cigarettes themselves. A fleeting pleasure packaged and sold. Do you think Hanley had much say about this use of her image? Probably not. And how many forgotten Emma Hanley's are buried in archives now, who will never been found, all reduced to advertisement in the end? Quite sad, in a way, really, and very fitting for that cigarette puff gone to smoke in seconds. Editor: That's a rather darker takeaway than I expected! Thinking of her agency, or lack thereof, definitely changes how I view her posture, even her expression. It becomes less about strength, and more about…performance of strength. Curator: Precisely! And hopefully you see there’s always something beneath the surface with even something as banal as an advertisement for tobacco. Never judge a book by its cover; especially ones with cigarettes inside. Editor: I will certainly ruminate over these newly gained nuggets of wisdom about old advertisements and long lost agency. Thank you.