A Bachelor's Error, from the Jokes series (N87) for Duke brand cigarettes
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 2 3/4 × 1 1/2 in. (7 × 3.8 cm)
Classification
Prints|Ephemera
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, Gift of Jefferson R. Burdick
Accession Number
63.350.204.81.24
Tags
Art Historical Context
Welcome to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection of ephemera, where everyday objects reveal the wit and whimsy of 19th-century life. *A Bachelor's Error* is a delightful chromolithograph from the J series (N87), in 1890 by W. Duke, Sons & Co in collaboration with George S. Harris & Sons. This tiny card—measuring just 2¾ × 1½ inches—was tucked into Duke brand cigarette packs as a promotional insert, part of a booming trend in tobacco marketing that made collecting these colorful vignettes a national pastime. Chromolithography, the medium here, was a revolutionary printing technique that ...
About the Artist
W. Duke, Sons & Co.|George S. Harris & Sons · 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...