Portrait of woman, from the Novelties series (N228, Type 2) issued by Kinney Bros.

Art Historical Context

Step into the vibrant world of 19th-century advertising with this charming *Portrait of a Woman* from Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company's Novelties series (228, Type 2), produced in 1889. just 1 9/16 inches in diameter, this petite, round commercial color lithograph designed as a collectible insert in cigarette packages, enticing smokers to save and trade them like modern trading cards. Kinney Bros., a prominent American tobacco firm, issued these ephemera to boost brand loyalty amid fierce competition in the Gilded Age market. Chromolithography, the medium here, was a breakthrough technique blending multiple lithographic stones for vivid, inexpensive color printing—perfect for mass-producing eye-catching images. This portrait exemplifies the era's fascination with feminine beauty, rendered in delicate, stylized features that echo Victorian ideals of elegance and allure. Part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, it highlights how everyday commercial prints captured cultural tastes and became prized artifacts. Today, such cards reveal the intersection of commerce, art, and collecting culture, preserving snapshots of 1880s fashion and design ingenuity in a tiny, jewel-like format.

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...