From the Girls and Children series (N58) promoting Our Little Beauties Cigarettes for Allen & Ginter brand tobacco products
1887
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 2 5/8 × 1 1/2 in. (6.7 × 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
63.350.202.58.26
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the vibrant world of 19th-century American advertising with this charming chromolithograph from Allen & Ginter's " and Children" series (58), issued in 1887 to promote their "Our Little Beauties". Produced by the pioneering tobacco firm of Allen & Ginter, this card—measuring just 2⅝ × 1½ inches—was tucked into cigarette packages as an enticing collectible, sparking one of the earliest trading card crazes. Featuring endearing images of girls, it exemplifies how companies used whimsical portraits to glamorize everyday products during the Gilded Age. Chromolithography, the medium here,...
About the Artist
Allen & Ginter
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...