Alphonse (28 Rue du Faubourg-St.-Honoré)
1855 (ca)
Advertisement for Alphonse

Albumen print, embedded on a journal page
3.25 x 2.5 ins (83 x 64 mm)
 
Charles Schwartz Ltd
This rare and striking advertisement gives us what may be one of earliest--and most unique--uses of photography in a commercial setting: a page from a journal made by mechanical reproduction (complete with illustrations drawn from engravings), in which an advertiser has embedded an actual, carte-de-visite-sized, albumen print. Readers would not only have a sense of one-to-one scale from this image, but they would also experience, first-hand, the difference in type between the sepia-toned likeness they might commission from the photographer, vs. the broadside-like, b & w engravings pictured above--and with which they'd be most familiar. A fascinating document (of interest to both enthusiasts of early photography, and print media) of the meeting of nascent and existing technologies. In brief translation, the Photographer, one "Alphonse" of Number 28 Rue du Faubourg-St.-Honoré boasts his diverse offerings to the potential client: studio props (paintings, machines, furniture, statues and other objects d'art); his ability to teach any amateur the collodion process; his ability to speak foreign languages, et al. Alphonse keeps studio hours of 10AM-5PM, every day of the week. (Charles Schwartz)
 
LL/29389