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[Display of Dr. Robinson’s Balm of Tulips]

A. H. Dinsmore American

ca. 1890

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 852

From the department store to the five-and-dime, new retail initiatives were reshaping American consumer culture in the years following the Civil War. Merchants competed for attention in increasingly aestheticized sales floors and shop windows, devising ornate arrangements like those seen here. Circulated on promotional cards, such photographs served a dual purpose: to advertise inventory and instruct local distributors in its display. No product was too humble for eye-catching exhibition: here a sore-solving elixir is presented with flair to rival the latest fashions.

[Display of Dr. Robinson’s Balm of Tulips], A. H. Dinsmore (American, active 1880s), Albumen silver print — Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Title: [Display of Dr. Robinson’s Balm of Tulips]

Artist: A. H. Dinsmore (American, active 1880s)

Date: ca. 1890

Medium: Albumen silver print

Dimensions: Image: 5 3/8 in. × 4 in. (13.6 × 10.1 cm)
Mount: 6 7/16 in. × 4 3/16 in. (16.4 × 10.7 cm)

Classification: Photographs

Credit Line: William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum's 150th Anniversary

Accession Number: L.2019.57.427

The Met

Photographs at The Met

The Met's Department of Photographs houses a collection of more than 75,000 works spanning the history of photography from its invention in the 1830s to the present.