Skip to product information
Antique 1880s Ayer’s Cathartic Pills Victorian Cherub Advertising Trade Card
$30.00 USD
Original late-19th-century advertising trade card for Ayer’s Cathartic Pills, prepared by Dr. J. C. Ayer & Co., Lowell, Massachusetts.
The colorful chromolithographed front depicts a whimsical group of cherubs or putti manufacturing, packaging, and preparing Ayer’s Pills. Across the top is the advertising slogan:
“Ayer’s Cathartic Pills – a safe, pleasant and reliable Family Medicine.”
The reverse contains an extensive period advertisement describing the pills as a cathartic and promoting them for numerous digestive and other ailments. It also discusses the company's distinctive oval wooden pill boxes and sealed glass vials used for export.
This is a genuine Victorian patent-medicine advertising piece. Institutional collections document Ayer’s Cathartic Pills trade cards from the 1880s, including examples dated 1883; another documented Ayer card is known to have been issued before 1893 and possibly during the preceding decade