Hindu, from World's Smokers series (N33) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes
1888
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 2 3/4 x 1 1/2 in. (7 x 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
63.350.202.33.40
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the vibrant world of 19th-century advertising with *Hindu, from World's Smokers series (N33)*, a diminutive commercial color lith produced by Allen & G in 1888. This tiny card, just 2 34 x 1 12 inches, was one of many inserts tucked into cigarette packs to entice collectors and promote the brand Part of a series exotic global smoking customs, it a Hindu man, capturing the era's fascination with distant cultures amid the booming tobacco trade. Chromolithography, the medium here, revolutionized commercial printing with vivid, multi-layered colors achieved through sequential stone prin...
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...