Information requests
10025.01	Improving content on photographic techniques
André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri
10025.02	André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri: The innovation of the carte de visite
10025.03	André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri: Uncut carte de visite sheets
Card stock
10025.04	The card stock used for carte de visites
Fronts - Portraits
10025.05	Carte de visites: Celebrities
10025.06	Carte de visites: Politicians
10025.07	Carte de visites: French royalty
10025.08	Carte de visites: British royalty
10025.09	Carte de visites: Occupations and roles
10025.10	Carte de visites: Ethnic and traditional costumes
10025.11	Carte de visites: Post-mortem portraits
Fronts - Objects
10025.12	Carte de visite: Objects
Fronts - Places
10025.13	Carte de visite: Places
Uses of carte de visites
10025.14	J.E. Mayall: Use of carte de visites to support police investigations
10025.15	Carte de visites: Memorial portraits
10025.16	Carte de visite: Etiquette
10025.17	Contemporary uses of carte de visites for employment
10025.18	Painted carte de visites
10025.19	Carte de visites: Multiple exposures
10025.20	C.W. Applegreen creates a composite photograph
10025.21	Carte de visite cameras
10025.22	Carte de visites: Advertising for photographers
10025.23	Ranger & Austen: Clairvoyant Medical Examinations - Buffum & Cleveland
10025.24	A contemporary thought on the properties, accessories and novelties used in 19th studios
Backs
10025.25	Carte de visites: Backs: Additional products
10025.26	Carte de visites: Backs: Awards
10025.27	Carte de visites: Backs: Change of business ownership
10025.28	Carte de visites: Backs: Diverse occupations
10025.29	Carte de visites: Backs: Product promotion
10025.30	Carte de visites: Backs: Royal patronage
10025.31	Carte de visites: Backs: Whimsy
10025.32	Carte de visites: Backs: Women photographers
Backs - Studios
10025.33	Carte de visites: Backs: Photographic studios
10025.34	Carte de visites: Backs: Photograph cars
Backs - Services
10025.35	Carte de visites: Backs: Negatives preserved, copies made and enlargements
10025.36	Carte de visites: Backs: Teaching available
10025.37	Carte de visites: Backs: Elevator available
Backs - Motifs
10025.38	Carte de visites: Backs: Catalogue pages
10025.39	Carte de visites: Backs: Shared graphic motif
10025.40	Carte de visites: Backs: Landscapes
10025.41	Carte de visites: Backs: Belt buckle
10025.42	Carte de visites: Backs: Transportation
10025.43	Carte de visites: Backs: Egyptian motifs
10025.44	Carte de visites: Backs: Graphics that place photography with the arts
Frames
10025.45	Photograph frames for carte de visites
Albums
10025.46	Carte de visite and cabinet card photograph albums
10025.47	Directions for inserting cards into carte de visite albums
10025.48	Examples of the first cards in carte de visite albums

This theme includes example sections and will be revised and added to as we proceed. Suggestions for additions, improvements and the correction of factual errors are always appreciated.

Information requests

10025.01   Card photographs >  Improving content on photographic techniques

We are seeking to expand the themes covering photographic techniques and processes. These sections will include:

Invention of the process
Any related patents
Trade literature
Contemporary advertisements and announcements of the innovation
A description of the process and its variants
Historical examples and details of where examples can be located in public collections
Contemporary examples by photographers using the exact process.

Conservation will not initially be included but may be in the future if required.

André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri

10025.02   Card photographs >  André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri: The innovation of the carte de visite
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri became for a time one of the most commercially successful photographers of the nineteenth century. The existing photographic forms of the metal sheet daguerreotype and glass ambrotype were relatively expensive and difficult to copy but when the wet plate collodion process became available producing albumen prints the costs went down rapidly and multiple copies could be easily made. He appreciated that by making multiple photographs, mostly portraits, and affixing the fragile paper prints to a robust card of a standardized size the purchaser could give them as gifts or business cards to their friends, acquaintances and colleagues - to do this he patented on 27 November 1854 a method for taking multiple small (101mm x 63mm) card photographs - carte de visite . These were an immediate craze and widely collected and to accomodate and display them the first photograph albums became available. Photographs of celebrities, actors, politicians and royalty sold in the tens of thousands and are still widely available.

Andre Adolphe-Eugene Disderi

Title | Lightbox | Checklist

10025.03   Card photographs >  André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri: Uncut carte de visite sheets
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

The cameras employed for taking carte de visite often had multiple lenses and by selectively uncovering the lens multiple copies of the same pose or different poses on the same plate could be taken allowing the sitter to select the ones required for printing. After the photograph was taken the wet collodion plate was developed and printed onto a paper sheet using the albumen print process and for André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri examples of these uncut sheets survive. These sheets were used in sample books and on sample boards to allow purchasers to select poses, buy additional prints of their own portrait or those of subjects of interest.

Andre Adolphe-Eugene Disderi

Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Carte de visite Uncut Sheets

Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Card stock

10025.04   Card photographs >  The card stock used for carte de visites

Fronts - Portraits

10025.05   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Celebrities

Carte de visite Celebrities

Title | Lightbox | Checklist

10025.06   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Politicians

10025.07   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: French royalty

Carte de visite Royalty

Title | Lightbox | Checklist

10025.08   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: British royalty

Albumen carte de visite prints of the British Royal Family.

Carte de visite Royalty

Title | Lightbox | Checklist

10025.09   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Occupations and roles

Carte de visite Occupational

Title | Lightbox | Checklist

10025.10   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Ethnic and traditional costumes

10025.11   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Post-mortem portraits

Fronts - Objects

10025.12   Card photographs >  Carte de visite: Objects

Fronts - Places

10025.13   Card photographs >  Carte de visite: Places

Uses of carte de visites

10025.14   Card photographs >  J.E. Mayall: Use of carte de visites to support police investigations
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

Andrew Wynter Subte brains and lissom fingers: Being some of the chisel-marks of our Industrial and Scientific Progress. And Other Papers, (Third edition, London: Robert Hardwicke, 1869) p.310-311

The universality of the carte-de-visite portrait has had the effect of making the public thoroughly acquainted with all its remarkable men. We know their personality long before we see them. Even the cartes de visite of comparatively unknown persons so completely picture their appearance, that when we meet the originals we seem to have some acquaintance with them. "I know that face, somehow," is the instinctive cogitation, and then we recall the portrait we have a day or two past seen in the windows. As we all know, the value of the photographic portrait has long been understood by the police, and known thieves have the honour of a picture-gallery of their own in Scotland Yard, to which we shall refer in some future paper; but the photograph is also useful for rogues as yet uncaptured and uncondemned. Thus, when Redpath absconded, it was immediately suspected that a negative of him must be lodged at some of our photographers. The inquiry was made, and one of them was found in Mr. Mayall's possession. An order was given for a supply to the detective force, and through its instrumentality the delinquent, though much disguised, was arrested on board a steamer sailing from some port in the North of Europe.

[The article "Cartes de Visite" was also published in Once a Week, Volume 6, Jan 25, 1862, p.134-137 and in The Living Age, Volume 72, 1862, p.676]

10025.15   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Memorial portraits

10025.16   Card photographs >  Carte de visite: Etiquette

Duffey, E.B., 1877, The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Etiquette: A Complete Manual of the Manners and Dress of American Society (Philadelphia: Porter and Coates), p. 175

No person of taste will display his or her photograph upon a carte de visite

10025.17   Card photographs >  Contemporary uses of carte de visites for employment

10025.18   Card photographs >  Painted carte de visites

10025.19   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Multiple exposures

10025.20   Card photographs >  C.W. Applegreen creates a composite photograph

This rare carte de visite series shows photographer C.W. Applegreen preparing a composite photograph along with the fruit of his labour.

10025.21   Card photographs >  Carte de visite cameras

10025.22   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Advertising for photographers

10025.23   Card photographs >  Ranger & Austen: Clairvoyant Medical Examinations - Buffum & Cleveland

Send lock of hair and $1.00, with name, age and residence, plainly written, and receive by mail complete diagnosis of disease and advice concerning treatment.

Address
Buffum & Cleveland,
Syracuse, N.Y.

N.B. - The Photograph on the reverse is of Dr. C.T. Buffum, taken while entranced, and showing the controlling power, RED JACKET.

10025.24   Card photographs >  A contemporary thought on the properties, accessories and novelties used in 19th studios

The Photographic Journal being the Journal of the Photographic Society, 15 December 1862, No.128, p.188

There is always too much of the studio in these carte de visite portraits. We do not merely refer to the extraordinary backgrounds which some of these operators employ. Why a respectable old lady is to be represented as sitting without her bonnet in a chair placed upon a Brussels carpet in the middle of a terraced garden, is always very perplexing; and it is equally difficult to understand what the foundation can be for the theory, which seems to have possessed the minds of several of the photographers, that the middle-aged men of England generally spend their lives leaning against a Corinthian pillar, with a heavy curtain flapping about their legs, turning their backs to a magnificent view, and obviously standing in a frightful thorough draught.

Backs

10025.25   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Additional products

10025.26   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Awards

10025.27   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Change of business ownership

10025.28   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Diverse occupations

10025.29   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Product promotion

10025.30   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Royal patronage

10025.31   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Whimsy

10025.32   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Women photographers

Backs - Studios

10025.33   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Photographic studios

10025.34   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Photograph cars

Backs - Services

10025.35   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Negatives preserved, copies made and enlargements

10025.36   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Teaching available

10025.37   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Elevator available

Backs - Motifs

10025.38   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Catalogue pages

10025.39   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Shared graphic motif

10025.40   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Landscapes

10025.41   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Belt buckle

10025.42   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Transportation

10025.43   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Egyptian motifs

10025.44   Card photographs >  Carte de visites: Backs: Graphics that place photography with the arts

Carte de visite were photographs mounted on to card and this allowed the photographer a means of marketing their studio with logos, names and addresses within a small area beaneath the image if the image was a portrait mode and on the back of the card. The entire back of the card ("backmarks") was limited only by the technical abilities of the printer and the imagination and requirtements of the photographer. As photography was viewed as a technical process performed by operators some photographers wanted to provide a direct linkage to the visual arts, particularly painting, and this was done through the symbols of easels, palettes, paint brushes and the wording selected such as "Photographer artist". Photographic studios offered artistic additional services including "portraits in crayon" or "photographs of all sizes taken and finished in India Ink, Oil or Water Colors".

Frames

10025.45   Card photographs >  Photograph frames for carte de visites

Albums

10025.46   Card photographs >  Carte de visite and cabinet card photograph albums

10025.47   Card photographs >  Directions for inserting cards into carte de visite albums

When carte de visite were new on the market directions were provided on how to place them in albums and this rare card is an example of that.

Directions

Be careful to cut the Photographs to the exact size and shape of THIS CARD, so as to correspond with the space cut out to receive them.

Should they be too long, they will swell one end of the Album and prevent it from clasping. To facilitate their removal, insert a paper cutter or broad bladed knife beneath the Card, so as to raise the lower edge, grasp them both with the thumb and fore-finger and withdraw the Card and knife at the same time.

10025.48   Card photographs >  Examples of the first cards in carte de visite albums

To encourage reciprocity in the giving of carte de visite special cards were produced to be inserted into albums often as the first or last card where the wording requested that the person viewing the album should not fail in their duty to present a card for inclusion. Examples of these cards include.

Yes here is my album,
But learn ere you look
That all are expected
To add to my book.
You are welcome to quiz it
The penalty is -
You add your own portrait
For others to quiz.




Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot.
And Never Brought To Mind?
While I've An Album To Contain
The Friends of "Auld Lang Syne".
Then Gie's Ye're "Carte"
My Trusty Friend,
And Here's A "Carte" O' Mine.
We'll Fill Our Albums To The End
Wi' The Friends
Of "Auld Lang Syne".




Hail to the photographic art!
Which such pure pleasure can impart
Depicting on the album's page,
From babyhood to hoary age,
The forms which our best love engae.
Hail science, hail inventive mind!
With happy skill all this combined,
To furnish forth a pure delight,
Aiding the mem'ry through the sight,
And bringing cherish'd forms to light.




Or the rather more straight forward German version

Bitte Bitte dein Bild [Please please your picture].

alan@luminous-lint.com

Further research

General reading

Boyd, T., 2000, Portraits in Sepia. From the Japanese Carte de Visite Collection of Torin Boyd and Naomi Izakura, (Tokyo: Izakura & Boyd) [Δ]

Chalabala, Mark S., 2013, American Backmark: The Art and Artistry of the Carte de Visite Imprint 1860-1890, (Privately printed) [Δ]

Darrah, William Culp, 1981, Cartes De Visite In Nineteenth Century Photography, (Gettysburg, Pa.: William C. Darrah) [Δ]

Mathews, Oliver, 1974, The Album of Carte-de-visite and Cabinet Portrait Photographs 1854–1914, (London: Reedminster Publications, Ltd) [Δ]

McCauley, Elizabeth Anne, 1985, A. A. E. Disderi and the Carte de Visite Portrait, (New Haven: Yale) [Δ]

Thomas, G., 1984, ‘Indian Courtesans in Cartes-de-Visite‘, History of Photography, vol.8, no.2, pp.83-88 [Δ]



Readings on, or by, individual photographers

Hermann Krone

Hesse, Wolfgang, 1998, Hermann Krone: Historisches Lehrmuseum Für Photographie. Experiment, Kunst, Massenmedium, (Dresden: Verlag der Kunst) [Δ]

Bohumil Stepán

Stepán, Bohumil, 1971, Bohumil Stepán: Familienalbum. Collagen, (Munich: dtv) [Δ]



If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com

Home > Contents > Photographers > Photographers worth investigating

Abdullah frères • Joseph P. Babbitt (check) • Emilie Bieber (1810-1884) • Bieber Family • Mathew B. Brady (1823-1896) • William Carrick (1827-1878) • André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (1819-1889) • W. & D. Downey • W. Hammerschmidt • Hennah & Kent • Serge Levitsky (1819-1898) • London Stereoscopic Company • Mathew Brady's Studio • J.E. Mayall (1813-1901) • J. Monstein • Nadar (1820-1910) • Negretti & Zambra • Pierre Petit (1831-1910) • Charles Reutlinger (1816-) • Sarony (1821-1896) • Savage & Ottinger • J.C. Schaarwächter (1847-1904) • Camille Silvy (1834-1910) • Southwell Brothers • Heinrich Tönnies (1825-1903) • George Washington Wilson (1823-1893)

Home > Techniques > Card photographs > Carte de visite

Related topics

Albumen prints
Albums
Backmarks
Cabinet cards
Card photographs
Graphoscopes
Viewers

Home > Contents > Online exhibitions > Carte de visite

Please submit suggestions for Online Exhibitions that will enhance this theme.
Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com

	Carte de visite Title \| Lightbox \| Checklist Released (May 30, 2006) Includes sections on royalty, celebrities, occupations and uncut sheets.		Carte de visite: Backs Title \| Lightbox \| Checklist Released (May 1, 2006)
	Carte de visite: Celebrities Title \| Lightbox \| Checklist Released (June 23, 2006)		Carte de visite: Cultural curiosities and the novel idea Title \| Lightbox \| Checklist Released (March 23, 2007)
	Carte de visite: Occupational Title \| Lightbox \| Checklist Improved (September 14, 2006)		Carte de visite: Royalty Title \| Lightbox \| Checklist Released (June 23, 2006)
	Carte de visite: Storage and display Title \| Lightbox \| Checklist Released (June 6, 2006)		Carte de visite: Uncut sheets Title \| Lightbox \| Checklist Released (March 18, 2011)
	The Commercial Portraiture of Camille Silvy Title \| Lightbox \| Checklist Released (August 3, 2006)

Home > Visual indexes > Carte de visite

Please submit suggestions for Visual Indexes to enhance this theme.
Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com

   Photographer

André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri: Carte de visites: Backmarks
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

Bohumil Stepán: Satirical photocollages
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

Felice Beato: Japan: Cartes de visite
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

Frank Rowell: Carte de visite with tax stamp

Giorgio Sommer: Cartes de visite - Backmarks
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

Jeremiah Gurney: Carte de visites: Backmarks
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

Jeremiah Gurney: Carte de visites: Portraits
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

Oliver Sarony: Advertising Carte de Visite
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

Robert Rive: Carte de visite: Backmarks
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer

W.L. Germon: Backmarks

   Techniques

Carte de visites: Backs: Additional products

Carte de visites: Backs: Belt buckle

Carte de visites: Backs: Catalogue pages

Carte de visites: Backs: Change of business ownership

Carte de visites: Backs: Diverse occupations

Carte de visites: Backs: Egyptian motifs

Carte de visites: Backs: Elevator available

Carte de visites: Backs: Graphics that place photography with the arts

Carte de visites: Backs: Landscapes

Carte de visites: Backs: Medals and prizes won

Carte de visites: Backs: Missing studio details

Carte de visites: Backs: Negatives preserved, copies made and enlargements

Carte de visites: Backs: Photograph cars

Carte de visites: Backs: Photographic studios

Carte de visites: Backs: Product promotion

Carte de visites: Backs: Royal patronage

Carte de visites: Backs: Shared graphic motif

Carte de visites: Backs: Teaching available

Carte de visites: Backs: Transportation

Carte de visites: Backs: Whimsy

Carte de visites: Backs: Women photographers

Carte de visites: Cameras

Carte de visites: Card stock

Carte de visites: Decorative mounts

Carte de visites: Embossed paper mounts

Carte de visites: Mirrorscopes

Carte de visites: Painted

Carte de visites: Proof stamps

Carte de visites: Storage and display

Carte de visites: Themes: Advertising

Carte de visites: Themes: Art

Carte de visites: Themes: Backgrounds

Carte de visites: Themes: Charitable causes

Carte de visites: Themes: Copies of earlier photographs

Carte de visites: Themes: Crime

Carte de visites: Themes: Directions for albums

Carte de visites: Themes: Double and multiple exposures

Carte de visites: Themes: Employment

Carte de visites: Themes: Erotica

Carte de visites: Themes: Ethnic and traditional costumes

Carte de visites: Themes: First cards in albums

Carte de visites: Themes: Front and backs

Carte de visites: Themes: Helping hand

Carte de visites: Themes: Marketing

Carte de visites: Themes: Military

Carte de visites: Themes: Mobile photographic studios

Carte de visites: Themes: Objects

Carte de visites: Themes: Occupationals

Carte de visites: Themes: Photograph frames

Carte de visites: Themes: Photographer tents

Carte de visites: Themes: Photographers

Carte de visites: Themes: Photographic studios

Carte de visites: Themes: Photographica

Carte de visites: Themes: Photomontages

Carte de visites: Themes: Places

Carte de visites: Themes: Portrait: Actors

Carte de visites: Themes: Portrait: African Americans

Carte de visites: Themes: Portrait: Celebrities

Carte de visites: Themes: Portrait: Native Americans

Carte de visites: Themes: Portrait: Royalty

Carte de visites: Themes: Post-mortem

Carte de visites: Themes: Sports and pastimes

Carte de visites: Themes: Strange

Carte de visites: Themes: Universal Exhibition of 1867 in Paris

Carte de visites: Uncut sheets

Carte de visites: Viewers

Carte de visites: Vignettes

Two versions of the same carte de visite with different colouring

   Private collections

Collection Laddy Kite: Multiple exposures

Collection Laddy Kite: Photomontages

Collection Laddy Kite: Transportation

The Isenburg Collection @ AMC Toronto: Carte de visites

   Still thinking about these...

Card photographs of actors, performers and entertainers

Copying photographs and copyists: Portraits of young girl (Carte de visite - Tintype)

Japanese carte-de-visite and cabinet card album

Refreshed: 13 May 2013, 07:49

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Home > Contents > Themes > Carte de visite

Home > Contents > Further research

Home > Contents > Photographers > Photographers worth investigating

Home > Contents > Online exhibitions > Carte de visite

Please submit suggestions for Online Exhibitions that will enhance this theme.Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com

Home > Visual indexes > Carte de visite

Please submit suggestions for Visual Indexes to enhance this theme.Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com

Please submit suggestions for Online Exhibitions that will enhance this theme.
Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com

Please submit suggestions for Visual Indexes to enhance this theme.
Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com