Helen Lamont, from the Actresses series (N246), Type 2, issued by Kinney Brothers to promote Sporting Extra Cigarettes
ca. 1890
Medium
Albumen photograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 3 1/16 × 2 7/8 in. (7.7 × 7.3 cm)
Classification
Photographs|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
63.350.220.246.66
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the glamorous world of 1890s celebrity culture with *Helen Lamont, from the Actresses series (246), Type 2*, a petite albumen photograph issued by the Kinney Brothers Company to promote their Sporting Extra Cigarettes. Measuring just 3 1/16 × 2 7/8 inches, this intimate portrait captures the allure of a stage star, part of a popular series featuring leading actresses. These cards were tucked into cigarette packs as collectibles, blending advertising savvy with the era's theater obsession. Printed via the albumen process—using egg whites to bind light-sensitive chemicals to paper for...
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...