Santa Barbara, from the Fancy Bathers series (N187) issued by Wm. S. Kimball & Co.
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 2 11/16 × 1 1/2 in. (6.9 × 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
63.350.216.187.17
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the vibrant world of 19th-century advertising with *Santa Barbara* from the Fancy Bathers series (N187), a petite commercial color lithograph produced by William S. Kimball & Company in 1889. Issued as part of promotional inserts for Kimball's cigarette packs, this ephemera captures the era's obsession with leisure and idealized femininity. Measuring just 2 11/16 × 1 1/2 inches, it features a profile of a woman, evoking the stylish bathers of seaside resorts—perhaps nodding to California's sunny Santa Barbara coastline. Chromolithography, the medium here, was a breakthrough in mass-...
About the Artist
William S. Kimball & Company
**William S. Kimball & Company**, a pioneering American tobacco manufacturer, was established in 1846 in Rochester, New York, by William S. Kimball and James C. Hart. The firm quickly grew into one of the city's largest employers, particularly of women, producing popular brands like Peerless chewing tobacco, Rigatta and Fireside smoking tobacco, and Vanity Fair cigarettes. Under Kimball's leadersh...