A Happy New Year, from the New Years 1890 series (N227) issued by Kinney Bros.
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 1 1/2 × 2 3/4 in. (3.8 × 7 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
Burdick 218, N227.6
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the vibrant world of late 19th-century American ephemera with *A Happy New Year*, a charming commercial color lithograph from Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company's New Years 1890 series (N227). Issued around 1889–90, this tiny card—measuring just 1 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches—was tucked into cigarette packs as a promotional insert, delighting collectors with its festive greeting and elegant depiction of a woman, evoking the joy of the holiday season. Chromolithography, the innovative color printing technique used here, allowed for mass production of vivid, multi-hued images at low cost, revoluti...
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...