Unbound upright folio. One bifolium with single leaf laid in. Decorative title with elaborate colored illustration depicting a woman trying to attract attention and a man gazing at her by Will. P. Noble, an artist in Cincinnati; lithographed by Bising & Gerlach, Cincinnati. Music engraved by A. Froelich, Cincinnati. 3-6 pp. Publisher's catalogue to final page. Music with numerous and extravagant expressive marks, all in English ("Graceful & coquettish"... "Haughty"... "Elegant"..."Scintillant," etc.). Printed fingering in old British style, with "+" marking the thumb. 14 x 10.75 inches (35.5 x 27 cm). Browned. Edges minimally frayed. Dampstain to upper edge of title and old price notation to upper edge.

An unusual early U.S. imprint reflecting the expansion of the music industry to the American Midwest following the mass settlement of German immigrants (Cincinnati and St. Louis both being German strongholds). WorldCat lists only one copy in the Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.

Jacob Kunkel and his brother Charles (1840-1923), born in Germany, immigrated to the United States as children. Having studied the piano with Louis Moreau Gottschalk, they established the music publishing house of Kunkel & Co. in St. Louis, Missouri in 1868, one year after the publication of the present piece. The firm published many of the brothers' own compositions under their own names and under various pseudonyms. From 1878 to 1909, Kunkel Brothers published Kunkel's Musical Review, a monthly magazine containing a significant amount of music (over fifty pages by 1899) in full sheet music size. (after IMSLP)

Interestingly, J. E. Gould, Philadelphia, announces an earlier "Flirt Polka" as no. 4 of a collection titled Two Fairies by Charles Grove (ca. 1817-1879) in The Musical World (New York), September 9, 1854, p. 22.