Black Eye, Blackfeet Sioux, from the American Indian Chiefs series (N36) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes

Art Historical Context

Behold the striking portrait *Black Eye, Blackfeet* from Allen & Ginter's *American Indian Chiefs* seriesN36), a vibrant commercial color lithograph produced in 1888. This petite card, measuring just 2 7/8 x 3 1/4 inches, was tucked into cigarette packs as a promotional insert, capitalizing on the era's fascination with the American. Allen & Ginter, pioneering tobacco marketers, issued these cards to entice collectors, blending commerce with cultural imagery during a time of rapid industrialization and romanticized Native American narratives. Crafted via chromolithography—a cutting-edge technique allowing vivid, multi-color printing on a mass scale—the card captures Black Eye, a prominent Blackfeet Sioux leader, in a dignified profile. Its small format belies its role in popularizing ethnographic portraits, part of a series featuring over 50 chiefs. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, it exemplifies 19th-century ephemera: everyday objects that preserve history. These cards offer a window into late Victorian America's complex gaze on Indigenous peoples—admired yet commodified. Today, they remind us of lithography's power to democratize art while sparking reflection on representation and cultural exchange.

About the Artist

Allen & Ginter

Allen & Ginter, the pioneering American tobacco firm based in Richmond, Virginia, emerged around 1880 from the partnership of John F. Allen and Lewis Ginter, evolving from Allen's earlier John F. Allen & Company. Allen retired in 1882, succeeded by John Pope, yet the brand endured under Ginter's leadership, employing over 1,100 workers—mostly women—for hand-rolled cigarettes by 1886. Ginter, a Dut...