Brown-Breasted Red Game Cock, from the Prize and Game Chickens series (N20) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 1 1/2 x 2 3/4 in. (3.8 x 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
63.350.201.20.8
Tags
Art Historical Context
This charming 1891 color lithograph depicts a proud Brown-Breasted Red Game Cock as part of Allen & Ginter’s “Prize and Game Chickens” series (N20), issued to promote the company’s cigarettes. Measuring just 1 ½ by 2 ¾ inches, the card was designed to be collected from cigarette packs, turning an everyday purchase into an opportunity for education and entertainment. Produced through commercial color lithography by the Gast Lithograph & Engraving Company, the image captures the rooster’s striking plumage with vibrant, precise detail suited to mass production. In the late nineteenth century, to...
About the Artist
Allen & Ginter|The Gast Lithograph & Engraving Company
Allen & Ginter, the pioneering American tobacco firm based in Richmond, Virginia, emerged around 1880 from the partnership of John F. Allen and Lewis Ginter, evolving from Allen's earlier John F. Allen & Company. Allen retired in 1882, succeeded by John Pope, yet the brand endured under Ginter's leadership, employing over 1,100 workers—mostly women—for hand-rolled cigarettes by 1886. Ginter, a Dut...