What a Card(s)!

I recently came across more pages from the album printed by William S. Kimball and Company for its 1889 "Fancy Bathers" cigarette card series. I had read that there were fifty cards issued in this series; each album page had a place to paste five cards, but I now have a total of eleven pages with spaces for cards, which would make 55 voluptuous bathing belles. Looking back on the original post, I realized the first pictured page must have been from a different cigarette album, as it is 9 inches tall by 6 inches wide, while all the other pages are 7.5 inches by 6 inches. Checking the five bathing belles pictured on the larger page against a list I found of the beauties in Kimball's "Fancy Bather's series," I discovered that one of the pictured scenes is labeled "Nice," which was not part of the Kimball series. Further, looking closely at the ladies, although they are as lovely as those pictured in the Kimball album, they were done by a different artist. So not only do I apparently now have the complete set of Kimball's seaside sirens, I have an extra page from another cigarette card album.

Although the pages show some wear and creases, the colors of the chromolithography are still bright and vivid. The pages at one point had been tied together with red thread, but several had come loose, so without page numbers, it is not clear what, if any order, they should be placed.

I discovered a bit of an artistic cheat as well.

Ms. Helgoland, pictured on the above page. . . 

was apparently separated at birth from her long-lost twin, Ms. Dinard, displayed in the earlier post.

The Kimball album offered a bonus feature as well, with some pages portraying . . . 

a full page portrait of one of the cards. Here Ms. Trouville gets a starring role.

An extra-large Ms. Paramé showing off her lustrous locks.

Ms. Saint Malo wades in the waves.

Ms. Ostende holds on to her demure bonnet while a naughty zephyr bare the tops of her thighs.

This page offered two enlarged lovelies. . .

Ms. Saint Enegat and. . . 

Ms. Torquay.

Only one page is printed on both sides. This appears to be the end of the album, advertising various varieties of Kimball's "Finest High-Grade Smoking Mixtures." The page also features cards of comic frogs. They were the work of American illustrator and author Henry Louis Stephens (1824–1882), known for his amusing anthropomorphic animals. 

The back of the page, and the album, features a bathing beauty seated on an oversized seashell. The bottom edge is marked "Julius Bien & Co Lith." Julius Bien (1826-1909) arrived in New York City from Germany around 1848, founding a successful lithography enterprise. He was the first president of the National Lithographers Association and may be best known for his beautiful, although unfinished, chromolithographed edition of John James Audubon's The Birds of America. I wonder whether there was also a front cover printed on both sides as well.