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

Curator: What a pensive gaze! The sepia tones lend such a dreamy, antique feel. Editor: Indeed. This is "Daisy Williams, from the Actresses series," created around 1890 by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company. It’s currently part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. The piece incorporates photography and drawing to create a promotional print. Curator: Actresses, of course, were the celebrities of their day. And tobacco companies were all about image. But it's more than mere advertising, don't you think? The composition and staging elevates the artwork. The very material—a mass-produced advertisement—gains cultural value. Editor: The choice of sepia contributes significantly to the mood. Observe the interplay of light and shadow defining Williams’s face. And how the dress pools around her. She becomes an idealized form; the scene's somber mood reflecting a kind of elegant melancholy. Curator: It is intriguing that she’s posed with what looks like a spinning wheel. Referencing traditional domestic work... perhaps to counter the actress's public persona. It merges a modern face with an antiquated, hand-worked aesthetic. It's a powerful claim about labor and changing roles for women, don’t you think? This commercial piece actively engages with gendered expectations. Editor: Perhaps. Or it's just a fashionable nod to pastoral simplicity and artistry. Notice the gentle curves echoing each other, from her hairline to the wheel itself. The line directs the gaze toward Williams' thoughtful expression, carefully staged. The material—paper stock created for advertisements, with an added photographic layer and drawn aesthetic—becomes secondary. It's primarily about the *image.* Curator: So much to consider in something designed to sell cigarettes! Thinking about the labor to produce prints like this... the impact they had on popular culture… it shows how capitalist enterprises were also cultural producers in this era. Editor: A fascinating snapshot of a moment, however constructed. This advertisement reflects on a moment in culture in ways that reverberate even now.