Monocle and Eye (blue), from Jocular Ocular series (N221) issued by Kinney Bros.
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 1 1/2 × 1 1/2 in. (3.8 × 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
Burdick 218, N221.6
Tags
Art Historical Context
Welcome to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints gallery, where we spotlight a delightful piece of 19th-century ephemera: *Monocle and Eyeblue)* from the *Jocular Ocular* (N221), issued by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company in 188. This tiny commercial color lithograph, just 1 1/2 × 1 1/2 inches, captures a whimsical blue eye peering through a monocle—a nod to Victorian fashion and optical humor. Part of a tobacco company’s promotional insert series, it was designed to entice collectors tucking these cards away from cigarette packs. Lithography, perfected in the 19th century, ...
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...