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

Art Historical Context

Step into the festive world of late 19th-century America with *Merry Christmas and Happy Year*, a charming commercial color lithograph from Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company's New Years 189 series (N227). between 1889 and1890, this petite—measuring just 1/2 ×2 3/4 inches—was likely tucked into cigarette packs as a promotional insert, sparking a collecting craze among enthusiasts. Featuring tender images of girls and women, it captures the era's sentimental holiday spirit, blending cheer with subtle brand advertising. Chromolithography, the medium here, revolutionized mass printing by layering vibrant colors through multiple lithographic stones, allowing affordable, eye-catching reproductions that mimicked fine art. Kinney Bros., a leading tobacco firm, issued these ephemera series to build loyalty, turning everyday smokes into portals of delight. Part of the Prints and Ephemera classification, it exemplifies how commerce intertwined with popular culture during the Gilded Age. Housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Jefferson R. Burdick Collection—a gift from the legendary card cataloguer—this tiny treasure highlights ephemera's enduring appeal. Once discarded, such cards now offer a window into Victorian whimsy and marketing ingenuity, reminding us how holidays have long been leveraged for joy and commerce alike.

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...