Five Diamonds, from the Playing Cards series (N84) to promote Turkish Cross-Cut Cigarettes for W. Duke, Sons and Co.

Art Historical Context

In the late 19th century, American tobacco companies like W. Duke Sons & Co. revolutionized by inserting colorful collectibles into cigarette packs, turning smokers—and often children—into eager collectors. This tiny chromolithograph, *Five Diamonds* from the N84 Playing Cards series (1888), promoted Duke's Turkish Cross-Cutarettes. Measuring just 2¾ × 1½ inches, it mimics a diamond-suited playing card, part of a larger set designed to captivate audiences with vibrant, card-game familiarity. Produced via commercial color lithography—a cutting-edge technique for mass-producing vivid hues on paper—this ephemera exemplifies the era's fusion of commerce and pop culture. Chromolithography allowed for affordable, eye-catching prints that rivaled fine art in detail, making advertising both playful and pervasive. Today, preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, it highlights how everyday promotions became cultural artifacts, offering a window into Gilded Age consumerism and the birth of branded merchandising. A delightful survivor from a bygone hobby!

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...