Which is the jewel?
This advertisement features the olive-toned hand of a beautiful woman, drenched in jewelry and elegantly holding a cigarette. It asks us, is “the jewel” the priceless jewelry, the woman herself, or the oversized cigarette burning between the woman’s fingers? The hand is clearly not that of the girl next door, but rather some exotic eastern beauty, evading the angry cries from the women of the temperance movement. In Advertising to the American Woman – 1900-1999, Daniel Hill cites this advertisement as depicting “a well-manicured woman’s hand holding a lit cigarette, the presumption was that it belonged to one of the exotic houris that tobacco companies had depicted in these ads for decades” (223). The term “houris,” mentioned in this excerpt, originated in the mid-18th century and refers to a beautiful young woman, especially one of the virgin companions of the faithful in the Muslim Paradise. This ad, although it shows a women’s hand holding a cigarette, was likely targeting a male audience.
Female, Luxury
