Fiji, Dancing Girl, from Types of Nationalities (N240) issued by Kinney Bros.
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet (Folded): 2 11/16 × 1 7/16 in. (6.8 × 3.7 cm) Sheet (Unfolded): 6 7/8 × 1 7/16 in. (17.4 × 3.7 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, N240.22
Tags
Art Historical Context
This charming 1890 commercial color lithograph titled "Fiji, Dancing Girl" belongs to the "Types of Nationalities" (N240) series issued by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company. Measuring just a few inches when folded, these portable cards were originally packaged with cigarettes as collectible inserts. The unfolded sheet reveals a vivid, stylized portrait of a woman in traditional Fijian dance attire, capturing the era’s fascination with global cultures through mass-produced imagery. As a product of late nineteenth-century American industry, the card reflects both the rise of color lithography...
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...