Private, Troy Citizen Corps., National Guard of the State of New York, 1886, from the Military Series (N224) issued by Kinney Tobacco Company to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 2 3/4 × 1 1/2 in. (7 × 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, N224.209
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the vibrant world of 19th-century American ephemera with this petite commercial color lithograph,Private, Troy Citizen Corps., National of the State of New, 1886*. Produced by the Kinney Brothers Company in 1888 this 2¾ × 1½-inch card captures a stern soldier in uniform, emblematic of local militia pride during the Gilded Age. Issued as part of the Military Series (N224) promote Sweet Caporal Cig, it was tucked into cigarette packs, enticing collectors with its bold depiction of martial valor. Lithography, the era's go-to technique for affordable, vivid color printing, allowed mass ...
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...