Carte de visite Paul Frecker Contrary to appearances, this portrait was not taken by Camille Silvy. He is rarely, if ever, acknowledged, but for more than half of the period that Silvy operated his London studio, he had a business party, Auguste Renoult. In 1862, Silvy began the habit of leaving the studio in the hands of others during the winter months, at first in those of Renoult, and after the partnership was dissolved in May 1864, in those of other members of his staff. Silvy placed advertisements in the Times announcing the intended date of his departure each year, and a few months later, the date of his return the following spring. Unfortunately, he did not do this consistently every year, and the only two winters for which we have both the departure date and the return date are the winters of 1862-63 and 1863-64. The missing volume of the daybooks is the one in which portraits for the latter of these periods would appear, so the only portraits we can be certain were not taken by Silvy are those which appear in volume ten of the daybooks, taken in the winter of 1862-63, roughly between 10 October 1862 and 4 March 1863.
