The Meade Brothers exhibited numerous examples of their work at the "Great Exhibition" held in New York City's Crystal Palace (1853-54), including a series of daguerreotypes by Charles Meade illustrating Shakespeare's "seven ages," as described in Act II of As You Like It. Lauded by the Photographic Art Journal for reflecting "much talent" and "a high degree of cultivated taste," the Meade Brothers' Seven Ages of Man—Infant, Schoolboy, Lover, Soldier, Justice, Pantaloon, and Second Childishness—later circulated in the form of card-mounted photographs known as cartes de visite.
