Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, from the New Years 1890 series (N227) issued by Kinney Bros.
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 1 1/2 × 2 3/4 in. (3.8 × 7 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, N227.17
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the festive world of late 19th-century America with *Merry Christmas and Happy Year*, a charming commercial color lithograph from Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company's New Years 189 series (N227). between 1889 and1890, this petite—measuring just 1/2 ×2 3/4 inches—was likely tucked into cigarette packs as a promotional insert, sparking a collecting craze among enthusiasts. Featuring tender images of girls and women, it captures the era's sentimental holiday spirit, blending cheer with subtle brand advertising. Chromolithography, the medium here, revolutionized mass printing by layering ...
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...