Thirty-one cut-outs from advertising banner for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes

Allen & Ginter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This album page displays 31 images hand-cut from an Allen & Ginter advertising banner that was intended for display in stores selling Allen & Ginter brand cigarettes. Burdick notes in "The American Card Catalog" that many cut-outs have been discovered in personal collections that cannot be matched to any of the numbered and classified banners (Allen & Ginter banners are classified as G1-G29). These cut-outs cannot be matched to a specific numbered banner, although all appear to be from the same banner thematically. All cut-outs on page depict portraits of ladies or actresses on daily household goods such as a beer stein, lantern, frying pan, and pin cushion.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art