Miss Annie Summerville, from the Actresses series (N245) issued by Kinney Brothers to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes
Medium
Albumen photograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 2 1/2 × 1 7/16 in. (6.4 × 3.7 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
63.350.220.245.1755
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the vibrant world of 1890s advertising with *Miss Annie Summerville* from Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company's Actresses series (N245). This petite albumen photograph, measuring just 2½ × ⅜ inches, captures poised elegance of the actress in a format designed for collectors. Issued to promote Sweet Caporal Cig, it exemplifies the era's innovative marketing, where tobacco packs included colorful trading cards featuring celebrities to entice buyers and spark a collecting frenzy. Albumen prints, the dominant photographic medium of the 19th century, used egg whites to create glossy, detaile...
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...