Card Number 129, Trowbridge, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-1) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes

Art Historical Context

Step into the vibrant world of 19th-century advertising with *Card Number 129,rowbridge*, a petite albumen photograph from the and Actresses series (145-1), issued W. Duke, Sons & Co. in 1880s to their Cross Cut Cigarettes Measuring just 2½ × 1⅜ inches, this tiny portrait captures the poised elegance of actress Trowbridge, embodying the era's adoration for theater stars. These cards were tucked into cigarette packs, sparking a collecting frenzy among enthusiasts who traded and albumed them like modern trading cards. Albumen prints, the medium here, were the gold standard for photography in the Victorian age—a glossy process using egg whites to bind light-sensitive silver salts, yielding sharp, luminous details ideal for mass reproduction. As ephemera, these cards highlight how tobacco companies cleverly merged celebrity culture with commerce, glamorizing actresses to appeal to a male-dominated market amid rising cigarette popularity. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, this piece comes from the renowned Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, a treasure trove of American print ephemera gifted in 1948. It offers a window into Gilded Age leisure, where fame, fashion, and a puff of smoke intertwined.

About the Artist

W. Duke, Sons & Co. · 1870–1920

**W. Duke, Sons & Co.: Pioneers of Chromolithographic Trade Card Art** W. Duke, Sons & Co., an American tobacco manufacturer, emerged from the entrepreneurial vision of Washington Duke (1820–1905) and his sons in Durham, North Carolina. After the Civil War, Washington abandoned farming in 1874 to join his eldest son, Brodie L. Duke, in the burgeoning tobacco trade, establishing a factory that for...