Gentleman, Poland, 14th Century, from the Military Series (N224) issued by Kinney Tobacco Company to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1888

This small chromolithograph, “Gentleman, Poland, 14th Century,” was made by the Kinney Tobacco Company as a promotional insert for Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. It depicts a figure in what’s meant to be traditional Polish dress, reproduced through industrial printing. The commercial application of chromolithography allowed for mass production of colorful images. What was once a laborious, specialized craft became part of an assembly line. The tactile qualities of the image are suppressed in favor of reproducibility, and the image served less as art, and more as a collectible advertisement. Consider, too, the labor involved in tobacco farming and cigarette production. The workers are invisible in this image, yet crucial to the overall picture. It demonstrates how consumer culture, even in its early forms, relied on complex systems of production and representation, far beyond the object itself.