CIGAR BOX LITHOGRAPHS VOLUME IV

Colorful cigar-box illustrations open a window onto America’s past in this beguiling catalog.

In this fourth volume of his catalog, Humber displays 100-plus items from his collection of cigar boxes manufactured in the United States and Canada from 1880 to 1920, the golden age of cigar smoking. Their main attractions are the lithographic illustrations on the insides of the lids, which are basically advertisements—slogans include “A 10¢ cigar for 5¢”—but also objets d’art intended to catch the eyes and imaginations of customers. The subjects tilt toward masculine, cigar-chomping associations, with many pictures of statesmen and generals from Maximilian I of Austria to Ulysses S. Grant, Arctic explorers, captains of industry, and Native American chiefs. There are also depictions of women that play to the male gaze, including portraits of then-famous actresses and sopranos, a painting of woodland nymphs frolicking with a satyr, and a scene of Coney Island beach beauties splashing about in bathing costumes that leave their calves scandalously exposed. (More respectful are a demure portrait of Jane Austen and a tableau of swaggering feminists in bloomers.) There are renditions of cultural touchstones from high (a scene from Wagner’s Tannhauser) to low (a portrait of silent-movie wonder dog Rin Tin Tin). The entries include details of each box’s date and manufacturer but consist mainly of a substantive, short essays on the life or history of the subject depicted; the book thus feels like an engaging if haphazard encyclopedia. Humber’s prose is lucid and workmanlike, sometimes edging into flights of metaphor. (“Like the unlocked mouths of hungry children seeking a candy, these lids…were wide open hoping to attract anyone peeking at this particular cigar box label to buy, perhaps compulsively, a special cigar product sold as Moon Spots.”) The lavish illustrations showcase the high quality of contemporary lithographic printing techniques with their rich, subtly graded colors and fine detail. Both collectors and casual readers will find here a trove of interesting Americana.

An informative, visually captivating look at the ingenious marketing of stogies.