Description
A Series of Four Antique French Black Character Trade Cards
A series of four Black caricature trade cards dating to the last quarter of the 19th century. Featuring exaggerated caricatures in a comical series promoting a meat extract.
Trade cards were promotional advertisements of the 19th century. They were trade stimulators created as collectable cards for trading and scrapbooking, utilizing bright vivid colours and often stereotypically racist images. Unfortunately many trade cards were derogatory, caricatured depictions of race, ethnicity, national identity, class, and gender, highlighting the anxiety and bigotry within white, Anglo society. And in these cases particularly, the popular trade cards not only reflected but also perpetuated insidious stereotypes. Even though these trade cards were exaggerated depictions, they also exhibited a sense of truth to the kind of treatment that these targeted groups endured.
