Happy New Year, from the New Years 1890 series (N227) issued by Kinney Bros.

Art Historical Context

Welcome to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, where we showcase delightful ephemera like *Happy New Year* from the New Years 0 series (N227), issued by the Kinney Tobacco Company in 188–90. This petite commercial color lithograph, just 1 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches, was likely a collectible insert tucked into tobacco packages—a clever marketing tactic popular in late 19th-century America. Tobacco firms like Kinney Bros. produced vibrant series of these cards to boost sales and delight collectors, blending holiday cheer with commercial savvy. Crafted via color lithography, a revolutionary printing technique that enabled affordable, mass-produced imagery with vivid hues, this card features symbolic motifs of bats and bells. Bats, often harbingers of good fortune in folklore, paired with celebratory bells, evoke joyful New Year's wishes amid the Gilded Age's booming consumer culture. Its ephemera classification highlights its everyday origins, yet its preservation in The Jefferson R. Burdick Collection—gifted to the Met—underscores its value as a snapshot of Victorian-era advertising and festivity. These tiny treasures remind us how art infiltrated daily life, turning a simple greeting into a cultural artifact. Spot the playful details and imagine families trading them at the dawn of 1890!

About the Artist

Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company · 1869–2011

**Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company (1869–2011)** Founded around 1869 by Francis Sherwood Kinney in New York City, the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company quickly rose to prominence in the burgeoning American cigarette industry. Francis, a pioneering tobacco manufacturer, experimented with hand-rolled cigarettes using blends of Turkish and Virginia tobacco, scaling to mass production by employing Europ...