He Thought He Had the Chicken..., from the Magic Changing Cards series (N223) issued by Kinney Tobacco Company
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
Burdick 218, N223.21
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the whimsical world of 19th tobacco premiums with *He Thought He Had the...*, a delightful card from Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company's *Magic Changing Cards* series (N223), in 1889. These tiny chromolithographs, measuring just 2¾ × 1½ inches, were tucked into cigarette packs as collectibles, sparking a collecting frenzy among Americans. The humorous title and tags evoking men and chickens hint at a playful optical illusion—likely a transforming image that shifts when tilted, turning expectation into surprise. Crafted via commercial color lithography, a revolutionary technique of the...
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...