In 1989 Richard Prince photographed a print campaign as it had appeared, printed, in the pages of a Time-Life publication, framing out the branding – Marlboro. In doing so, he made an art object by adding a relationship; we are now at one remove from an advert intent on pushing coffin nails and can take a wider view.

It’s difficult to get a handle on how much was cut out of the original image, as it is hard to track down; at least, it is comparatively harder than Prince’s version; this is ironic considering the other key in Prince’s transformation of this into an art object was having found a mass-reproduced image and used it to make an edition of two. The ad predates the digital age and the official Marlboro website; the Prince changed hands at Christie’s for $1,248,000 in 2005, which made it newsworthy. The landscape has changed. The time of abundance of the original has passed and now only the myth as told by Prince remains; this is, of course, like the cowboy himself but the appropriation of the cowboy’s image does not begin with Prince but, in fact, Marlboro; everything about the rose-tinting of America the frontier is already in the ad; either it takes Prince’s act to show it or he is trying to make the next comment.