Number 24, Metempsychosis, from the Tricks with Cards series (N138) issued by W. Duke, Sons & Co. to promote Honest Long Cut Tobacco
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 4 3/16 × 2 1/2 in. (10.6 × 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
63.350.207.138.24
Tags
Art Historical Context
This small color lithograph from 1887 belongs to the “Tricks with Cards” series (N138), one of many sets of illustrated cards that W. Duke, Sons & Co. tucked into packages of Honest Long Cut Tobacco. Measuring just over four by two-and-a-half inches, the card was designed to be both advertisement and collectible, encouraging customers to buy more tobacco in hopes of completing the set. The fanciful title “Metempsychosis”—the ancient notion of soul migration—hints at a card trick involving transformation or surprise, typical of the instructional and entertaining subjects the company chose. Pro...
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...