Sweet-Peas: Goodbye Sweetheart!, from the series Floral Beauties and Language of Flowers (N75) for Duke brand 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
63.350.204.75.30
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the late 19th century, American tobacco companies like the American Tobacco Company revolutionized marketing with colorful collectible cards inserted into cigarette packs. This charming chromolithograph, *Sweet-Peas: Goodbyeheart!* (1892), produced by the Donaldson Brothers, is part of the "Floral Beauties and Language Flowers" (N75) series for brand cigarettes. Measuring just 2¾ × 1½ inches, these petite prints were designed as affordable premiums to entice smokers and delight collectors, often children, who traded them like modern trading cards. The artwork taps into the Victorian "langu...
About the Artist
Donaldson Brothers|American Tobacco Company (American| ) · 1850 | –1870 |
American, New York|