Sepia Saturday 166: Henrietta goes to Blackpool

My submission for this week's issue of Sepia Saturday has little to do with the themes suggested by the image prompt, I'm afraid, although I imagine it was taken at around the same time (and it does involve a dangerously long skirt). The caption for Lewis S. Hine's Paper Boxes, Binding Covers gives a rather broad date range of "ca. 1906-1938" but, judging from the frilled blouses and early bobbed hair styles, by my estimation it was taken during the Great War. I suspect it was part of Hine's documentation of the American Red Cross's relief work in Europe.


Henrietta Christina Payne, 19 August 1910
Postcard portrait by Y. Burns, The Studio, Victoria Pier, Blackpool
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
This is one of three surviving portraits of my great-great-grandmother Henrietta Christina, and the only one to show her alone. It was taken in the summer of 1910 at the studio of Young Burns on Victoria Pier, Blackpool, presumably during a visit there with friends or family. I have written previously about her son and daughter-in-law Hallam and Sarah Payne's regular visits to Blackpool and other seaside resort towns such as Swanage, Bournemouth and Great Yarmouth, and it is quite possible that they took her there for a short holiday.


The back of the photograph is a regular postcard format, with the photographer and studio location printed up the left hand edge. Young Burns (1863-1931) was the son of a Lancashire machine ganger who started off working as a solicitor's clerk in Oldham, but by 1901 had married and settled in his wife's home town of Blackpool, where he was working as an artist.


Unidentified woman, c.1904-1909
Small format print by Burns & Ashton, Victoria Pier, Blackpool
Image © and courtesy of James Morley & whatsthatpicture
Jones (2004) shows Burns in partnership with Benjamin Ashton (formerly of 27 Keswick Road, Blackpool in 1901) as photographers with a studio on Victoria Pier, South Shore from 1904 until 1909. The following excerpt from a history of the southernmost of Blackpool's three piers, opened in 1893, in Wikipedia is illuminating:

Victoria Pier was considered to be more "upmarket" than North and Central piers, and at first provided little entertainment. Holidaymakers started visiting the South Shore in 1896 when a carousel was installed on the sand dunes. In 1902 the south entrance of the promenade was widened with the construction of the present promenade, and the pier entrance had to be moved back. In 1930 the pier was renamed South Pier.

Entrance to Blackpool's Victoria Pier, 1904
Still image from Mitchel & Kenyon cinematograph
Image © British Film Industry National Archive & courtesy of YouTube
Burns and Ashton appear to have opened the studio shortly after the re-design of the Victoria pier's entrance, shown in this still from Mitchell & Kenyon's ground-breaking cinematograph of Blackpool in 1904. (N.B. click on the image above to get to the full clip on YouTube.) From 1909 to 1918, Burns operated the studio alone.


Herr Blomé's Berlin Meister Orchestra, c.1911
Image © and courtesy of Michael Brubaker & TempoSenzaTempo
In my pursuit of the circumstances surrounding Henrietta's visit to Victoria Pier, I came across several more portraits from this particular studio, including no less than three postcard format photos of Herr Blomé's Berlin Meister Orchestra from fellow Sepian and photo-sleuth extraordinaire Mike Brubaker. The postcard view shown above, probably taken c.1911, has the orchestra arranged on a board floor in front of a well-windowed wooden building, which appears to be identical with that appearing immediately inside the entrance to the Victoria Pier in the Mitchell & Kenyon still.


Victoria Pier, South Shore, Blackpool, 1905
Coloured photomechanical print postcard by unidentified publisher
Having a studio situated at the entrance of the pier made good business sense for a photographer, who would be well placed to catch the tourists as they arrived and departed, and to offer a memento of their visit. The ticket booths to the left and right of the wrought iron gates offered similar opportunities to peddlers of tourist memorabilia. Postcard racks provided by Boots Cash Chemists can be seen clearly displayed in the Mitchell and Kenyon film clip.


Victoria Pier, Blackpool, 1905
Coloured photomechanical print postcard by unknown publisher
Sadly this entrance no longer exists, having been superseded by a series of large gaudy frontages, which I wont bother to reproduce here.


Victoria Pier, Blackpool, 1907
Real Photo Series No. 48 postcard by unknown publisher
I found portraits showing several varieties of postcard design from Young Burns' studio, but none of them are accurately dated, so there is not yet an opportunity to date them purely by card design.


A feature which most of Burns' portraits have in common is that the subjects are, quite understandably, dressed for an outing - the array of hats is pretty impressive. Most also have the variable silvery-grey sheen covering darker areas, characteristic of many portraits from this era, and resulting from the migration of free silver radicals within the sensitised emulsion and their deposition as metallic silver particles on the surface. This renders such photographs very difficult to scan properly.


There are also a number of postcards of bands and orchestras, which must have been a common sight on the Blackpool waterfront, entertaining the crowds of pleasure seekers. This group portrait of Jan Hurst and his group of musicians must have been taken shortly after his appointment as conductor of the Victoria Pier Orchestra in 1919, and was possibly not take by Young Burns, although it shows his presumed pier entrance photographic studio in the background.


Before you head off to check out the other Sepia Saturday entries, have a look at the full Mitchel & Kenyon cinematograph clip above. It gives an atmospheric flavour of the times, including a wonderful variety of hats.

References

South Pier, Blackpool, from Wikipedia

Jones, Gillian (2004) Lancashire Professional Photographers 1840-1940, Watford, Herts: PhotoResearch, 203pp.

Reynolds, Brian & Lee, Michael J. (nd) Jan Hurst and his Orchestra, on Masters of Melody.

The Crystoleum: Bringing the Art of Photo Colourisation into the Home

Crystoleum sounds like the name of a Victorian fairground attraction, an entrance for which you might expect to see between Strange and Wilson's Aetherscope and the helter skelter. In fact it was another of the many photographic formats which appeared in the 1880s and 1890s and enjoyed a period of popularity which lasted until the Great War.


Edith and Maud Barnes of Ashbourne, c.1883-1885
Cabinet card portrait by Alfred Cox & Co., Nottingham
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
This is a standard cabinet portrait, showing Edith and Maud Barnes dressed for a stroll in the noon day sun, complete with fake boulders and a landscape backdrop to complete the outdoors scene. Although they lived in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, where their father William Barnes was an ironmonger, it appears the family visited Nottingham frequently, because several of their photographic portraits were taken at the studio of Alfred W. Cox & Co. Edith was born in mid-1877, Maud roughly two years later, which places this portrait sitting around 1883-1885.


"Bamboo and Fan" card design by Trapp & Münch, Berlin
Cabinet card by Alfred Cox & Co., Tavistock Chambers, Market Place, Nottingham
Turning over the cabinet card reveals a design printed on the reverse which is very similar to "Bamboo and Fan" from Marion of Paris, described by Vaughan (2003) as introduced in 1884, although this particular example is by Trapp & Münch of Berlin.


The card stock used is of a medium intensity grey colour and has the appearance of having been made from recycled pulp in which the darker fibres are still visible, as shown above, of a type which became more commonly used in the mid-to late 1880s.


Edith and Maud Barnes of Ashbourne, c.1883-1885
Colourised cabinet card portrait by Alfred Cox & Co., Nottingham
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
A second cabinet portrait, taken from the same negative, is likely to have been produced on the same occasion. The card mount is identical - albeit this one has not been trimmed at the base - but it shows signs of having been hand coloured. Although somewhat faded, the yellow in the hair, pink cheeks and dresses, brownish fur and red hat bands and cloth are still visible. The studio did, after all, bill themselves as "Photographers Miniature & Portrait Painters," and had offered "portraits in oil or crayon" from at least the early 1870s.


Edith and Maud Barnes of Ashbourne, c.1883-1885
Crystoleum portrait on glass
Photograph by Alfred Cox & Co., Nottingham
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
The third in this series of similar portraits, while appearing in this image to be somewhat similar, bar the different colouring, is quite another format altogether. Closer examination of the original shows it to have been printed on the back of a slightly convex rectangular piece of fully translucent glass, roughly the same size as the original cabinet card.


Recycled carboard backing of crystoleum portrait
This is backed with a piece of card, apparently reused from an unwanted cardboard-backed print of an engraving, possibly of some European city. (Full marks to the first reader who can tell me what city it is, although it's not likely to have much relevance to this post).


Colourised back of crystoleum portrait
Carefully separating the cardboard from the glass, the owner (not myself) revealed a rather surprising picture, appearing similar to the efforts of a young child in a "paint-by-numbers" book. It was obvious, though, that the colours of this crude picture on the concave side of the glass matched perfectly those visible through the convex side and were, in fact, directly responsible for the not altogether displeasing colourised portrait.


Section of Crystoleum (Jones, 1911)
This portrait is a crystoleum, a format distinct from the crystalotype, an albumen-on-glass process patented by the American John Adams Whipple in 1850, used first for negatives and later for positives. The clearest description I have found of the process involved in producing a crystoleum portrait is by "P.R.S." in Cassell's Cyclopedia of Photography (Jones, 1911), which includes the following brief summary:

A is the front glass, on which a photograph B is pasted face downwards. When dry the photograph is made transparent, and delicate details coloured with ordinary oil colours, but the broad masses of colour are not put on. Another glass D, of the same size and shape as A, as put at the back, but is prevented from touching the photograph by means of strips of paper H, which leave a small space at C. On the back E of the second glass are painted the broad masses of colour. The whole is backed up with a piece of flat cardboard or other backing G, leaving a space F. When viewed from the front the coloyrs are seen through the transparent photograph and the whole has the appearance of a delicately painted picture on glass.

Disassembled crystoleum portrait (Whitman et al, 2007)
Whitman et al (2007) show a disassembled crystoleum portrait (above) and describe the process:

The Crystoleum process was popular from the 1880’s until the 1910’s, and was usually a albumen print face-mounted to convex glass with gum or paste. The paper is then rubbed away with sandpaper until the emulsion layer is exposed. What was left of the paper was made translucent, if needed, with a dry oil, wax or varnish. The fine details were then painted on the back of the photograph, a second piece of convex glass that has been broadly coloured is layered behind the image glass, and the package is bound with a paper backing.

Crystoleum portrait of unidentified young girl, undated
Chromo-Photographie, Jules Delarue, Genève
Image © and courtesy of Nordiska museet/The Nordic Museum
This crystoleum portrait of a young Swiss girl from the Nordic Museum, also usefully disassembled, has the same components, and the web site provides an image showing the back of the front glass with the "fine details" (below).


Crystoleum portrait, back of front glass and front of second glass
The first mention of the crystoleum that I have been able to find in the British newspapers is an advertisement in The Morning Post in June 1882 offering "Lessons given in this new and easily acquired Art of Painting in Oils. Proficiency guaranteed or money will be returned," in Oxford Street, London. This suggests to me that, provided one had an albumen print with which to work and the materials, which could readily be had at the local chemist, no great artistic skills were required to transform the photograph into a work of art.


Crystoleum portrait, back of second glass and front of backing card
Indeed by July 1885 the process was being described in full for readers of The Observer (Anon, 1885). It took another decade for it to reach such far flung parts of the Empire as New Zealand, but in August 1896 residents of Dunedin were regaled with details of how to participate in the delights of the "crystoleum craze" by an enthusiastic contributer to the Otago Witness (Anon, 1896).


Crystoleum portrait, unidentified place and photographer, undated
Image © and courtesy of Länsmuseet Gävleborg/Gävleborg County Museum
As shown by this scene of a country estate, perhaps somewhere in Sweden, the crystoleum process was not limited to portraits, and could be used to very good effect on landscape photographs.

The portrait of Edith and Maud Barnes was taken in the early to mid-1880s, which roughly equates to the period when the crystoleum started to become popular, transforming into something of a do-it-yourself style process. The Barnes crystoleum may of course have been created some time after the original cabinet cards, but it is interesting to speculate whether it was done by the Nottingham studio of Alfred Cox, or perhaps by a member of the Barnes family. Either is conceivable, and we are unlikely to ever know for sure, unless the reused engraving print can be identified as coming from the Barnes household.

If you have a crystoleum in your own collection, I'd be interested in hearing from you and seeing some images, particularly if the subjects are members your own family. Although it appears to have been very popular in late Victorian and Edwardian times, many examples won't have survived and they may not be very common.

References

Anon (1885) All About Crystoleum Painting, Observer, Volume 7, Issue 345, 18 July 1885, Page 4, Courtesy of Early Canterbury Photographers.

Anon (1896) A Lesson in Crystoleum Painting (by Cigarette), Otago Witness, 27 August 1896, p.42, Courtesy of Papers Past.

Anon (2009) Victorian Crystoleums - How they were made, Arthaul.com

Jones, B.E. (1974) Crystoleums, in Cassell's Cyclopedia of Photography, Ayer Publishing (Reprint of the 1911 Edition by Cassell, London), p. 154-155.

Vaughan, Roger (2003) Dating CDV photographs from the designs on the back: The 1880s Page Two, Victorian and Edwardian Photographs - Roger Vaughan Personal Collection.

Whitman, K., Osterman, M. & Chen, J.-J. (2007) The History and Conservation of Glass Supported Photographs, George Eastman House, Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation, p. 36.

Annie Orchard's crowning glory - An opalotype from Derby

Some years ago Karen Cross sent me these images of what Marcel Safier eventually identified as an opalotype. Although I have displayed the images previously on my web page for the Derby branch of A. & G. Taylor's huge network of studios it's worth revisiting them, not only because it is an unusual example from that studio but, in keeping with the series of images I've discussed recently, it has been hand coloured. I have also delved a little further into the background of the family, and unearthed one of those coincidences which happen to many of us who have ancestors who lived in one area for a number of generations. It turns out she's closely related to someone else that I've researched for Photo-Sleuth, and in fact discussed at great length in a previous article. More of that later.


Annie Goodwin née Orchard, c. 1880-1882
Opalotype (165x215mm), A & G Taylor, 63 London Road, Derby
Created from copy negative or print c.1889-1890
Image © and courtesy of Karen Cross
The following is what I originally received from Karen:

The subject is Annie Goodwin née Orchard, twin sister of my great-grandmother Fanny Orchard. They were born on 27 February 1863 at Holy Trinity, Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire. She seems fairly young in the portrait so it may have been her eighteenth birthday or done so her twin could bring the picture with her to Australia. My great-grandmother Fanny married Arthur John Kidd of Kings Bromley and immigrated to Queensland Australia in 1882. They lived in Emerald until her death in 1946. The photo came into my family's possession through my grandmother Edith Annie Francis (née Kidd).

This vignetted studio portrait shows a young woman, probably in her late teens, with her very long hair worn loose and down at the back, a fashion which was popular for unmarried girls up to the age of about 18, but not usually acceptable for married or older women. Geoff Caulton - on his British Photo Detective web site - refers to this style in Edwardian times being called a woman's "Crowning glory." The clothing appears to be roughly equivalent to the fashions from the early 1880s.


Detail of opalotype
The soft nature of the image, an effect largely due to the white glass used as a backing and often compared to watercolours or pastels, is demonstrated well in this example. Enlargement of the image demonstrates that the photograph has not only been coloured, but also significantly retouched, with much of the texture of her hair and the fabric of the clothing having been overpainted. Her lace collar has been very thickly embellished resulting in a three-dimensional effect. She may be wearing some kind of thin silk head covering.

Opalotypes - also known as opal types or milk glass positives - were introduced by Joseph Glover and John Bold of Liverpool, who patented their invention in 1857, but a number of methods of preparation were in common use by the mid-1860s (Towler, 1866; Waldack, 1865). They were made by applying photosensitised emulsion to the surface of an opal glass substrate, usually with a gelatine binder layer. The plate was then exposed to the negative either by contact printing or by use of a specially designed copying camera, and the image developed. The surface of the print was often colour-tinted by hand, and they were often cased in the same way that daguerreotypes and collodion positive portraits (ambrotypes) had been previously. Whitman et al (2007) describe opalotypes being produced until the 1940s, although the process was never very popular, perhaps due to the relatively high cost.


Reverse of opalotype, reproduced c. 1887-1890
Image © and courtesy of Karen Cross
The back of the opalotype shows several notable features, as follows.
- It has an underlying beige-coloured patina, worn away in places to reveal the milky white, translucent glass forming the base on which the photograph was made.
- A small rectangular label is affixed to the top right hand corner of the back, inscribed "Derb 22468" in handwritten pencil, probably a negative number from the Derby branch.
- The remains of four pieces of printed trade label are affixed roughly centrally on each edge, perhaps used to hold it within a frame or mount at some stage in its history.
- At intervals around the edges are what appear to be yellowed tape marks, perhaps also used for framing or mounting, but more recently than the trade label fragments. The serrated leading edges and residue are typical of those produced by sellotape.
- Written on the patinated surface in what appears to be blue ball point pen, is: " Miss Annie Goodwin (Grandma Kidds twin Sister."

Reconstructed trade label, A. & G. Taylor, 63 London Road, Derby
I've managed to reproduce an image of three quarters of the trade label using digital reconstruction, and this is enough to show that it was for A. & G. Taylor's branch studio at 63 London Road, Derby, operated by managing partner William Middleton, who also controlled branches in Sheffield, Nottingham, Goole, Doncaster and Barnsley. Although not definitive proof that the opalotype was made there, in conjunction with the negative number of presumed Derby origin ("Derb 22468"), one could certainly make a strong case for it.

The address of the Derby branch changed from 57 London Street to 63 London Road some time between October 1887 and October 1888, although I am fairly sure that this reflected a renumbering exercise and street name change rather than a physical move of the studio premises. It remained open until at least 1903. The Sheffield branch studio was at Furnival Chambers, 101 Norfolk Street from 1879 till 1904, while the Nottingham branch address was at 107 Parliament Street - also known as West End Chambers, Chapel Bar - from around 1882 until at least 1901. Victoria Street, Goole was home to a branch for a relatively short period between 1889 and 1891. Doncaster also had a branch at 32 Scott Lane from 1881 until 1889, and Osman (1996) records W. Middleton being a partner c. 1890. The only recorded date for a Barnsley branch (Sheffield Road) is 1904.

If one excludes Barnsley, the only period when all five remaining branches were open simultaneously was from 1889-1890. Although this dates the trade label rather than the opalotype itself, it is likely that the latter was produced around that time. The following comments were made by fellow photo researcher David Simkin, who very kindly looked the image:

The evidence seems to suggest that the photograph was originally taken around 1881/1882 in Derby (perhaps at A. & G. Taylor's studio in 57 London Street and at a later date (late 1880s/early 1890s) the image was transferred to [opal glass] by the studio that still held the negative or a copy photograph.
A number of reasons could account for wanting to transfer the image to a ceramic plaque - one that cannot yet be discounted is that Annie died young and the plaque was a sort of permanent memorial. If she wanted to send a copy of her photograph to Fanny a number of years after she had departed to Australia, why not a more recent photograph and why on a relatively heavy and fragile base? It would have been easier to send a cabinet or carte de visite portrait on a card mount. Alternatively, another relative could have brought the ceramic photo to Australia, or it could have been collected if Fanny ever returned to England for a visit to her family.

In April 1881, at around the time this portrait was originally taken, Annie Orchard was living with her widowed mother Harriett (née Goodwin) at 185 Newton Road, Winshill, Derbyshire, on the opposite bank of the River Trent from the Staffordshire brewing town of Burton-upon-Trent. Her twin sister Fanny was employed as a nurse in the household of Robert Ratcliff - partner in the famous Burton brewing firm of Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton - and his wife Emily née Payne (my 3g-grandfather's frst cousin) at Newton Park, Newton Solney. The girls' father had died in 1866, leaving Harriet with four children under the age of six to bring up alone. Her youngest child, a boy named Samuel, died in 1871.

Although I've been unable to locate Annie in the 1891 Census, in 1901 she was single and living in Kensington, London, where she worked as a parlour maid for a brewery manager. It is tempting to conclude that she found this position through brewery trade contacts in Burton. Her elder brother William was still living in Winshill and working as a brewery labourer in 1891 and 1901. Her unmarried status is a little difficult to reconcile with Karen's description of her as "Mrs Annie Goodwin née Orchard," although she may well have married after 1901.


Orchard-Botham-Smith outline tree
Click to enlarge
Finally, I discovered during the course of my research that Annie's father Henry Orchard (1826-1866) was second cousin to Jacob Botham Smith (1840-1925), who featured in a series of articles on Photo-Sleuth two years ago, entitled "A mystery marriage in Barton-under-Needwood."


Annie Orchard (left), the wedding party of Jacob Botham Smith & Mary Ann Hoult (right)

References

Osman, Colin (1996) The Studios of A. & G. Taylor, the Largest Photographers in the World, Supplement to The PhotoHistorian, No. 111, March 1996.

Payne, Brett (2008) A. & G. Taylor of the Royal Studio, 57 London Street and 63 London Road, Derby, Derbyshire Photographers' Profiles.

Towler, J. (1866) The Silver Sunbeam: A Practical and Theoretical Text-Book on Sun Drawing and Photographic Printing, New York: Joseph H. Ladd, 5th Edition, p. 392-403.

Vaughan, Roger (2004) The Studios of A. & G. Taylor, Victorian & Edwardian Photographs.

Waldack, Charles (1865) Treatise on Photography, Cincinatti: H. Watkin, 4th Edition, p. 247-251.

Whitman, K., Osterman, M. & Chen, J.-J. (2007) The History and Conservation of Glass Supported Photographs, George Eastman House, Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation, p. 25-26.

The Man with Piercing Blue Eyes

Unidentified man, c. early to mid-1870s
Carte de visite portrait by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns
This carte de visite, like the hand coloured portrait which I described in the previous post, was sent to me by Diana Burns, who says:

In the case of the "Man with Strange Eyes," I had at first thought the CDV had been tampered with, but close inspection would suggest that his eyeballs were 'enhanced' over the original photo, although why I don't know.

There is a very simple explanation to why the young man's eyes look as though they have been tampered with - they have! The photosensitive emulsions used on early photographic glass plate negatives were far more sensitive to blue, violet and ultraviolet light than that of other wavelengths. This made the colours from the blue end of the spectrum appear abnormally dark on the negative, and hence very light on the albumen print produced, for example, on a carte de visite.


To counter this effect, a retoucher would be often employed by the photographer to pencil in the eyeballs appropriately on a print or, less frequently, to alter the negative. It was a tricky process to get right, particularly on the small format of cartes de visite, but obviously worked to the customer's satisfaction in most cases. Over time, while the emulsion on many examples has faded, the retouching has not, leaving the very odd "piercing eyes" effect which is very commonly observed in many old portraits from the first few decades. In this particular portrait, the dots of black ink have not been added very carefully, so now that the contrast has been enhanced by fading of the sepia, the large size, odd shape and misplacing of the surrogate irises seems very odd indeed.


Digitally recreated negative
This peculiarity of early photographic emulsions being not equally sensitive to all wavelengths of light, also resulted in the "shades of grey" - actually sepia - that were produced on prints from the 1850s through to the 1880s not being the same shades as those that might be produced by the same sets of clothes, skin tones, hair and backdrops in a studio today. In addition, too much white or light coloured clothing could easily result in an over-exposed, washed-out effect. Studio photographers would therefore often provide detailed guidelines on what colour clothes their customers should and shouldn't wear when visiting for a portrait.

Post Script

Example of unretouched albumen print, showing "pale" eyes
Detail from stereographic print of family of Charles and Lucy Stratton, c. early 1880s
Image © and courtesy of Liz Stratton
After reading this article Liz Stratton very kindly sent me some scans of a stereographic portrait of her ancestors (Stratton family photo), which demonstrates how such a lightening of the eyes would look in an unretouched state. Being from the early 1880s, by which time technology had developed somewhat, the effect is somewhat less than it might have been in earlier years. I have some earlier examples which show the effect and, if I can find that "safe place" where I put them, I'll feature scans in a future Photo-Sleuth article.

P.P.S.
I remembered that the photograph in my collection which most obviously demonstrates the "pale blue eyes" phenomenon was this carte de visite portrait of Colonel Fitzmayer and his wife which I featured in a previous Photo-Sleuth post, An artillery officer and Crimean hero of the old school.

Ambrotypes - portraits for the middle class

Although photography had been "invented" by Louis Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot in the late 1830s, the daguerreotype remained expensive, and only affordable to the relatively wealthy, including the professional and political classes. With the introduction by Frederick Scott Archer of the glass negative process in 1851, and the ambrotype three years later, the cost was reduced considerably - they were available for between sixpence and a shilling - and photographic portraiture became easily accessible to the middle class. In contrast to daguerreotypes, which remain fairly rare, there are still many ambrotypes in existence in family collections, and you may well have one among your old family heirlooms. Although ambrotypes continued in occasional use until about 1880, they were most popular in the decade from 1855 until 1865, after which they were overtaken and superseded by the carte de visite.

The ambrotype was created by coating a glass plate with collodion and photosensitive silver nitrate. The plate was exposed in a camera, then quickly taken out and treated in a dark room with a developing solution to bring out the image. This produced a photographic negative which was then backed with something dark, such as dark felt or black varnish, which had the effect of inverting the image. It was then mounted and framed or cased, as had been the daguerreotype.


The ambrotype shown above is one from my own small collection. Unusually for Victorian portraits, both subjects are smiling, and she is grasping his hand quite firmly, which is what attracted me to it in the first instance. Unfortunately it has lost the frame or case in which it would have originally been mounted, but the the thin gilded, pressed metal, decorative frame is still present and in good condition. It shows the characteristic greyish appearance of an ambrotype - few of them have any of the lighter shades, and if you see lighter areas, it is wise to look for signs of touching up or that it may in fact be a cased tintype.

The three-quarter length portrait is of an unidentified seated couple, perhaps in their mid- to late 20s. I think they must be a recently married couple, because her wedding ring, earrings and the brooch at her neck, as well as his shirt buttons, have been highlighted with gold paint. It is interesting to note that the ring is on her left hand. As the ambrotype was a negative, the image would be reversed and ring should have been on her right hand. The photographer appears to have anticipated the problem, and perhaps instructed her to change the ring to the opposite hand and finger. As the enlarged and enhanced image below shows, however, she appears to also have a less prominent - and ungilded - ring on her "right" hand! The photographer's artist obviously took some liberties. The buttons on the gentleman's shirt and waistcoat give the game away, as they appear to be done up on the wrong side.


Typically for portraits from the mid- to late 1850s, they are seated side by side. This pose was not commonly used again in portraiture, except in the case of larger groups, and by some less experienced artists, until much later in the century. The woman's clothing (bell-shaped, layered and fringed sleeves, pleated bodice closed at the top with a gold brooch and trimmed with a lace collar, pointing downwards to a tightly corseted waist; a single full, ground-length skirt) and hair style (centrally parted, curved back down over the forehead to almost cover her ears, and drawn back to a bun on the back of her head) are indicative of the mid-1850s. The young man is wearing what appears to be a frock coat, simple dark waistcoat, and shirt with a turned over collar and rather untidily knotted bowtie. He has a slight Quaker-style chin-beard, with only a suggestion of a moustache, and hair parted on his "left"(right)-hand side.

I estimate that this was quite an early ambrotype, and probably dates from between 1854 and 1857. Nobody looks quite the same in the mirror - in other words, nobody has an absolutely symmetrical face. For the first time in a century and a half, we can now view the photo as it might have been printed more accurately, had the technology been available at the time.


References:
Dating Family Photos 1850-1920, by Lenore Frost, self publ. 1991, Essendon, Victoria, Australia.
Family Photographs 1860-1945, by Robert Pols, publ. 2002 by Public Record Office, London, England.