Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut, from the Presidential Possibilities series (N124) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Honest Long Cut Tobacco
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 4 1/8 × 2 1/2 in. (10.4 × 6.4 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
63.350.206.124.9
Tags
Art Historical Context
This 1888 commercial color lithograph features Joseph R. Hawley, a prominent Connecticut senator and Civil War general, as part Duke Sons & Co.’s “Presidential Possibilities” series. Produced to promote Honest Long Cut Tobacco, the card exemplifies how 19th-century manufacturers used small, collectible prints to advertise their products. Measuring just over four by two-and-a-half inches, it was designed to be slipped into tobacco packages, turning everyday purchases into opportunities for collecting portraits of political figures. Color lithography allowed for bright, affordable imagery that ...
About the Artist
W. Duke, Sons & Co.|The Giles Company · 1870–1920
**W. Duke, Sons & Co.: Pioneers of Chromolithographic Trade Card Art** W. Duke, Sons & Co., an American tobacco manufacturer, emerged from the entrepreneurial vision of Washington Duke (1820–1905) and his sons in Durham, North Carolina. After the Civil War, Washington abandoned farming in 1874 to join his eldest son, Brodie L. Duke, in the burgeoning tobacco trade, establishing a factory that for...