The carte-de-visite - fit for the Queen and commoners alike

The early 1860s saw the rapid popularization of the carte de visite as the photographic medium of choice. Although the method had been invented and patented by Andre Disdéri in 1854, it was not until Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had their portraits taken that it began to catch on. John Mayall in London and Oliver Sarony in Scarborough were said to have made small fortunes selling portraits of the royal family and other famous people. The main reason for the popularity was its low production cost, a result of being able to produce a number of photos on a single plate, which brought down the price to a level affordable to most, as is shown on the reverse of this 1872 carte de visite.



1 Copy ............1/- | 12 Copies ............5/-
3 do .............2/- | 24 do ...............9/-
6 do .............3/- | 50 do ..............18/-

This photo of an elderly woman in a rather ordinary looking dress is marked in pencil on the reverse, "1872 - 68091." The latter is the negative number, and 1872 appears to be the year in which it was taken - apparently, because it is important to be careful with any inscriptions on old photographs. They may have been written by anyone, and at any time since it was originally produced. The clothes worn by the woman, the card mount shape (square corners), thickness of the card, and card design, all point to a date of the early 1870s.

PhotoLondon's online database of London photographers shows Alexander L. Henderson (1838-1907) as working from a studio at 49 King William Street, London Bridge between 1860 and November 1887, and from a second premises at 2 Devonshire Place, Amersham Road, New Cross, Deptford between 1864 and 2 January 1873. After 2 January 1873, that branch moved to 3 Amersham Road, New Cross. This confirms that the photo probably was taken in or around 1872.

References/Further Reading
A History of Photography: Carte de visite, by Robert Leggatt
A Brief History of the Carte de Visite, by the American Museum of Photography

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.

A Day Out With The Lads Skating in Matlock Bath

Visits to the photographic studio in the latter part of the nineteenth century were usually rather formal affairs. Many comments are made about the sombre expressions on the sitters' faces. However, one does occasionally come across a photo in which a little more frivolity can be detected.


This photo shows a group of five young men who, although they do have the regulation expressions, are arranged in a much more relaxed manner than is usual. One of the men, leaning over a "wall" with what appears to be a clay pipe in his hand, has his hat set at a slightly rakish angle. Another - perhaps the youngest of the gang - is seated on the floor and has his legs half crossed. They even have a dog with them, although they must have had a job keeping it still for long enough to show in the photo.

The clue to the activity in which they are about to engage, or have just engaged in, is not in the photo itself or an inscription - as the carte de visite is sadly lacking in any identification of the subjects - but in the details of the photographer and his studio. The text and design on the reverse of the card mount indicates it was taken by William Godber, an "artist and photographer of views, groups & mansions ... on moderate terms," at The Rink Studio, Matlock Bath.

The Skating Rink in Matlock Bath appears to have operated for only a few years in the late 1880s and early 1890s, although there is a suggestion from an entry in the London Gazette that it had been in existence prior to 1877. Kelly's 1887 trade directory shows F.E. Leggoe as proprietor, while the 1891 edition of the same publication indicates that William B. Hunt had taken it over. I have not been able to discover anything more about the Matlock Skating Rink, but by April 1891, Godber had moved to Litchurch near Derby, so presumably this photograph was taken before then.

I have not yet come across any other photographs by William Godber, but census records indicate that he was working in this field as early as 1881 (in Hammersmith, London) and as late as 1901 (Carlton, Nottinghamshire).

The carte de visite shown below was included in the same batch, and appears to show a close up portrait of the same young man who is standing at left in the group portrait. He appears to be wearing a different jacket and shirt collar, so it was probably taken on a separate occasion.

Tennyson's "Dream of Fair Women"

I purchased this postcard photo some time ago on eBay because it is from the studio of Frederick J. Boyes (of 22 & 24 Osmaston Road, Derby). However, it is also of interest for the reason that it is from a rather different genre from the usual contributions that I receive. It is a standard postcard format picture. The reverse is of a very ordinary design, with no studio name printed; as was common with Boyes' later postcard portraits, the studio name and details are blind stamped onto the lower right hand corner of the front of the card.


Tennyson's "Dream of Fair Women"
It is inscribed in pen on the reverse, "Tennyson's 'Dream of Fair Women'" - nothing else. I wasn't familiar with this poem, but the full text may be found here. It was an early poem written by Tennyson in 1833, but it was strongly criticized by reviewers, and "made little impression on the Victorian public which had lost its taste for poetry and was devoted mainly to prose fiction." [Source: Modern English Books of Power, by G.H. Fitch, 1912] Millais provided an illustration for an 1857 publication of the work:


Illustration for Tennyson's "A Dream of Fair Women", by John Everett Millais, 1857, engraved by W.J. Linton
The popularity of the work appears to have undergone something of a revival in the Edwardian era. The art noveaux period brought this work in the romantic genre by Emma Florence Harrison, probably from shortly before the Great War. A film of that name was also produced in 1920


"A Dream of Fair Women", by British artist Emma Florence Harrison
Unfortunately, the identity of the cast members of this performance of "A Dream of Fair Women" has not been preserved along with the photo. As I purchased it on eBay, the provenance is also lost. However, there must, somewhere, be records of the poem-play being performed in Derby. I presume it was in Derby, as Boyes was unlikely to have travelled very far afield. It looks as though it has been taken in a suburban garden, but there are few clues as to where. My guess is that it dates from between 1905 and 1925, but it's difficult to be more accurate than that, because the costumes are, after all, costumes.

Perhaps there is a reader out there who can offer some more insights into when and where the performance may have taken place, and who the actors were?

Jerome - "Studios Everywhere"

Alan Radford sent me these three charming hand-coloured postcard format photographs a couple of years ago.


Alan Radford, in 1931 (left), 1933 (centre) and 1937 (right)
taken by Jerome Studio of Sheffield
The photos are of Alan himself in his youth, and are of a type that was common in the period between the wars. The photos are not from Derbyshire - Alan grew up in Sheffield - but Jerome Studios did have a branch in Derby, which operated from 1929 to 1949. The first of the images has a rather nice embossed frame, and is inscribed "Xmas Greetings" in the lower margin. It also has two numbers, one stamped (14240), the other written (2B 3268) - it is not clear which of these is a negative number - and a stamp, "E. Mallinson & Son". The latter is probably the name of the manager(s) of that branch. The first two postcards have the standard "Jerome crown & wreath divided-back", while the third, and most recent, merely has a simple diagonal "Jerome stamp."


These three portraits are nice examples of hand-coloured black-and-white photos. This process of studio artists hand-colouring monochrome photos in this manner was first employed by studios in the 1850s with daguerreotypes and ambrotypes. In the 1860s, 1870s and early 1880s the process was also used for cartes de visite, cabinet cards and photographic portraits printed on other materials such as ceramics, but by the late 1880s and 1890s they appear to have lost favour, and are rarely found. The postard format was introduced for portraits around the turn of the century, but really started to flourish in the early 1900s. After the First World War colouring of photos became popular once more, particularly for images of children.

Jerome's Studios appear to have flourished from after the First World War until at least the early 1970s. They advertised as having branch "studios everywhere," but unfortunately rarely mentioned on the reverse where the studio in question was located. However, one thing which they did commonly include on the reverse was a date stamp, so useful to family historians. Most of the portraits that I have seen have been postcards, some of which were sold enclosed in card or paper folders.

Peter Stubbs has an interesting article about Jerome Limited on his excellent EdinPhoto web site, with several examples of plain black-and-white and hand-coloured portraits from the 1920s and 1930s. Maurice Fisher also has some information about the history of Jerome Studios on his Photographic Memorabilia pages.