19th Century Cigar Box Labels (Poe)

This Spanish cigar box label (right) shows a rather ethnic looking version of Edgar Allan Poe. He is shown in the top center, surrounded by (clockwise) Oliver Wendell Holmes (the poet and father of  the Supreme Court Justice of the same name), Johann Christoph Frederich von Schiller, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. There may have been reservations about Poe in his home country, the United States, but his fame in international circles was already well established.

The label featuring Poe alone (below), was produced for the Kraus Company, in Baltimore, MD. It was intended to be affixed to the inside of the lid of a cigar box. The cigar band (below, right) also features a small portrait of Poe and was, as one would expect, wrapped around the cigars.

(The items displayed here are reproduced, with permission, from a private collection.)