Trade Card of Brewster & Co. (of Broome St) Carriage Builders

Art Historical Context

Step into the bustling streets of 1870s New York with this charming trade card from Brewster & Co., renowned carriage builders on Broome. Produced around 1870 as a promotional lithograph by Tiffany & Co.—the luxury goods powerhouse—this petite 6 9/16 × 4 in. ephemera the elegance of urban life. Dep men, women, horses, and finely crafted carriages, it advertises Brewster's high-end vehicles, favored by the elite for their superior craftsmanship and status. Trade cards like this were the billboards of the Gilded Age, handed out at shops and events to entice customers. Lithography, the medium here, allowed for vibrant, mass-produced color images on a budget, revolutionizing advertising from plain text to eye-catching visuals. Brewster & Co. epitomized American ingenuity in coachmaking, blending functionality with opulence before automobiles eclipsed them. Today, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department (gift of William Brewster, 1941), this card offers a window into consumer culture's evolution. It's a delightful reminder of horse-drawn glamour in a pre-motor age—ephemeral then, treasured now.

About the Artist

Tiffany & Co.|Brewster & Co. · 1837–present

Tiffany & Co., founded on September 18, 1837, by Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B. Young in New York City as a stationery and fancy goods store, quickly evolved into a premier American house for jewelry and decorative arts. Under Charles's leadership, the firm introduced innovations like the sterling silver standard in 1851 and the iconic six-prong Tiffany Setting engagement ring in 1886, establis...