Sepia Saturday 178: Polyfoto, The Natural Photography

I do appreciate that, for Saturday Sepians at least, sepia is a state of mind rather than a colour, shade or bygone photographic hue, but this week I will share a photograph in the traditionally sepian style from my aunt's family collection.


Lieutenant Charles Leslie Lionel Payne, 1941
Unmounted silver gelatin print (76 x 98mm)
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
Her father - my grandfather - had served as a machine gunner in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the Great War but, when the Second World War broke out, at 47 he was a little old to head off abroad, and was commissioned as an officer in the Pioneer Corps. Judging by the number of passport-style shots of my grandfather taken during the war years, he and the rest of the family were rather proud of his achievements, and justifiably so. In early 1942 he was promoted from Lieutenant to the rank of Captain, and by mid-1943 he was Major Payne, Officer Commanding 315 Company at Newport, Monmouthshire.


Reverse of silver gelatin print (76 x 98mm)
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The back of an almost identical print has the remains of stamp edging stuck to the four edges, suggesting that it may at one time have been affixed to a mount or frame of some sort. Both this and the previous print have a small number 60 pencilled on the back, in the lower right-hand corner.


Lieutenant Charles Leslie Lionel Payne, 1941
Unmounted silver gelatin prints (each strip 110 x 37mm)
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The prints are sepia-toned enlargements of a negative which also resulted in the two strips of 1¼"-square portraits above, and are almost certainly a product of the Polyfoto process. Unfortunately the reverse only has the date 1941 (corrected from 1940) written in blue ink by my grandmother. Derby had its own Polyfoto studio during and after the war, situated first at The Spot, and later in the Midland Drapery Co. Building on the corner of St Peter's and East Streets.


Two portraits of an unidentified woman, undated, estd. c1935-1945
Unmounted silver gelatin Polyfoto prints (37 x 37mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
One of these two similar-sized head-and-shoulders portraits from my own collection fortunately does have the remnants of the manufacturer's name on the back, as well as the number 22 written in purple pencil, although the subject sadly remains anonymous.


The Polyfoto camera, made in England by Kodak Limited, 1933
Image © and courtesy of the National Media Museum
The camera used to produce these photographs was a rather unusual one, employing an automated process which reduced costs dramatically, although it did not, such as with Photomatic photobooths, dispense with the need for an operator. Originally of Danish design, and subsequently manufactured under license in England by Williamson Maunfacturing and Kodak Ltd from 1933, they used a repeating back, a series of 48 half-inch-square exposures being made on a 7" x 5" glass plate negative as a handle on the side was cranked.


Taking portraits in a Polyfoto studio, c.1949
Image © and courtesy of the Polyfoto web site
They were deployed in booths located in all the major towns in England, Scotland and Wales. Caulton (2010) lists 109 of them existing around 1950, most operated as concessions in large department stores, although there were a number of stand-alone studios in busy central locations.


Sabrina at a Polyfoto studio in a department store, 1956
Image © and courtesy of British Pathé
British Pathé has a wonderfully evocative film clip of Sabrina in her sweater (for those among you familiar with the Goon show) having her portrait taken at a Polyfoto booth in Bourne and Hollingsworth's department store (click on image above to view the clip). They advertised themselves as "the only system of photography giving natural and truly characteristic portraits, since the sitter can move and converse freely whilst the 48 photographs are being taken."

The sitter was asked to look this way and that. Sometimes the session was stopped, to remove a hat or coat. The photographer would chat to the sitter to put them at ease and often induced a genuine smile. Children were often given a ball or balloon to play with.

(Geoff Caulton, 2010)

A former employee of Polyfoto describes here how the camera was operated and the glass plates then dispatched to the Head Office and factory at Stanmore in North London (later located at Boreham Wood, Hertfordshire) (Anon, 2006).


Polyfoto proof sheet envelope
Image © and collection of Brett Payne, courtesy of Anthony Norton
After developing the glass plate negative, 48-photo proof sheets were printed using fixed-focus enlargers and sent back to the studios. The envelope shown above, marked with the address of Derby's Polyfoto studio at number 3 The Spot, is presumed to be one in which the proof sheet was delivered to the studio, ready for collection by the customer.


Yvonne Chevalier, De Gruchy's Department Store, St Helier, Jersey, c.1948
Proof sheet (silver gelatin print, 225 x 300mm) and numbered plastic sleeve by Polyfoto Ltd.
Image © and courtesy of Alison Richards
This proof sheet shows 48 different photographs arranged in a 6x8 grid, together with a numbered plastic sleeve or overlay, from which the customer could choose to have one or more shots enlarged at an additional cost.


Variation in degree of sepia-toning of Polyfoto print enlargements
Images © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The enlargements could be supplied in a number of different formats, ranging from 4" x 5" to 10" x 12", and with a variety of finishes, including sepia toning and colouring.


Enid Joan Goacher, Sussex, c.1948
Proof sheet (silver gelatin print, 225 x 300mm) by Polyfoto Ltd.
Image © and courtesy of George Plemper
Of course the individual prints on the proof sheet could themselves be used and, as Geoff Caulton notes (2010), many carefully selected shots were cut out and "carried in purses, wallets and paybooks in every theatre of war."


Paul Godfrey, Arnold's Ltd., Great Yarmouth, 1949
Mounted proof print, taken by Polyfoto Ltd in a department store booth
Image © and courtesy of Paul Godfrey
Many proof prints were individually mounted behind simple pre-printed passe-partout card frames, such as this cute example from fellow photohistory enthusiast Paul Godfrey.



Geoff Caulton also has a number of fine specimens displayed on his PhotoDetective web site (click the Gallery button), most of which appear to have been taken during the war years, and I suspect this is when the Polyfoto attained its greatest popularity.


Mary Lavender Wallis in WAAF uniform, before June 1942
Booklet of proofs by Polyfoto Ltd.
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
One could also chose to have the proof sheet cut up into blocks of six and mounted in a plastic-covered album, such as this booklet ordered by Nigel Aspdin's mother, and probably taken at a Polyfoto branch in London shortly before she received a commission in the WAAF in June 1942. She visited the studio for another session in her new officer's uniform sometime after that date, for which Nigel also has an almost complete proof sheet.



It appears that Polyfoto was not restricted to the United Kingdom. The above unidentified and undated print is from Denmark, and I have also seen a characteristically diminutive print originating from Leipzig, Germany. I'd be interested in hearing from readers who have seen examples from even further afield, as I am unsure whether the cameras ever reached North America or the Antipodes.


Former Polyfoto studio in Hainstrasse, Leipzig, Germany
Digital image taken with Sigma DP2s camera, 19 February 2012
Image © and courtesy of -fs-
It is not clear how long the Polyfoto network lasted although certainly by the late 1960s, when the head office moved to Watford, its popularity was on the wane. Several sources claim that the reason for its demise was the coin-operated photobooth although I have my doubts, since the operator-free booths were already well established prior to the Second World War, when the Polyfoto network was expanding rapidly.


Duc de Coimbra, c.1860
Albumen print (201 x 237mm), uncut carte de visite sheet, by Disderi
Image © and courtesy of George Eastman House (GEH NEG:13908)
The idea of exposing multiple frames on a single photographic plate was not a new one. In fact, it had been around for nearly seven decades prior to the Polyfoto camera's debut in 1933, and indeed formed the basis of popular commercial photographic portraiture in the 1860s and 1870s, as introduced by Disderi and others with the carte de visite format in the mid- to late 1850s. Using a multi-lens camera several (usually eight) exposures were made on a single collodion wet-plate which was contact-printed on albumen paper. The images were then cut up and mounted on card separately as cartes de visite.


Simon Wing Ajax Multiplying Wet Plate Camera, c.1899-1900
Image © and courtesy of David Tristram Ludwig's Antique Cameras Photo Gallery
This technique of taking several frames on a single plate also found very popular use in the production of gem tintypes, which I will cover in a forthcoming Photo-Sleuth article. The multiplying wet-plate camera designed by Simon Wing and shown above, had a mechanism surprisingly similar to that of the Polyfoto camera of 1933. So, as some say, there is nothing new under the sun.

Before you head over to see what the rest of the Sepia Saturday folk have in store for you this week, have a look at this poignant two-and-a-half-minute Polyfoto compilation by Daniel Meadows about his parents.

References

Polyphoto Portrait Photography Studios web site. [retrieved 19 May 2013]

Anon (2006) Reviving the Polyfoto, on Camster Factor, 2 March 2006. [retrieved 19 May 2013]

Anon (nd) Polyfoto Vintage Style Photobooths, on Ian Johnson Wedding Photographer. [retrieved 19 May 2013]

Caulton, Geoff (2010) The Polyfoto and Polyfoto Studios, on PhotoDetective. [retrieved 19 May 2013]

Coe, Brian (1978) Cameras: From Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures, United States: Crown Publishers.

Sepia Saturday 169: Keeping a Kodak Story, the Autographic camera

The image prompt from Sepia Saturday this week depicts a swarm of photographers framing shots of the Washington Monument, the Tidal Basin and cherry trees in full bloom in April 1922. My focus will be on the instrument rather than the practitioner.


US Patent 1184941 issued to H.J Gaisman, 30 May 1916
Between 1912 and 1917, a young backyard inventor by the name of Henry J. Gaisman was granted several patents for photographic cameras. These improvements allowed the user to "write" a brief caption permanently on the film through a small window in the back of the camera, most importantly, at the time the picture was taken. Gaisman stated that his work on this device arose from the fact that "it annoyed him to return from a vacation trip with pictures that he could not identify," an irritation familiar to most of us who have taken more than a couple of snapshots.


"The Autographic Kodaks"
Detail from 1914 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
In July 1914 George Eastman of Eastman Kodal Ltd. paid Gaisman the "remarkable" sum of $300,000 for the patent rights. Within three months several Kodak camera models (1A, 3 and 3A) were on sale, modified accordingly, a special red paper/carbon-backed Autographic Film Cartridge also available in the appropriate film sizes (Coe, 1978).


"Make Your Kodak Autographic"
1914 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
In their marketing blurb Eastman Kodak described the Autographic as "the most important photographic Development in two decades." Not only was the feature "incorporated in all of the most important Kodak models," but they also supplied Autographic Backs at very reasonable prices, which could be retro-fitted to at least ten different models, as listed in a number of advertisements.

Prices from $9.00 to $65.00. If you already have a Kodak we can sell you a separate Autographic back. Prices $2.50 up.

"The Autographic Kodak" - a negative image
Detail from 1914 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
The advertisements emphasized the usefulness of the Autographic feature, and some included examples of the negatives and prints produced by the camera:

Every negative that is worth making is worth a date and title. The places you visit - interesting dates and facts about the children, their age at the time the pictures were made - the autographs of friends you photograph - these notations add to the value of every picture you make ... The amateur photographer who wants to improve the quality of his work can make notations on his negatives, of the light conditions, stop and exposure.

No 3A Autographic Kodak Special Model B
Image © and courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection
Kodak claimed great success with the Autographic models, in an 1915 advertisement apparently taken in by their own marketing strategies and hype (in West, 2000):

The Autographic feature has scored a hit, and a big one. At first, perhaps, the interest was mild ... now, in considerably less than a year, it is pretty hard to sell a camera without the Autographic Feature.

It would have been more accurate to say that it was pretty hard to find a Kodak camera without the Autographic feature as a standard feature.


"The Day of His Going"
1918 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
After the United States joined the War in April 1917, Kodak urged wives to capture the day of their husband's departure for Europe on film, not forgetting the date and title, permanently recorded on the negative. The Vest Pocket Kodak Autographic, reputedly used by the famed Ansel Adams on his second visit to Yellowstone in 1917, was even marketed as "The Soldier's Camera." The marketing focus was now on nostalgia rather than usefulness.


"?13/2/18 On Barron's Farm" - Paper print (116 x 78mm; 4¼" x 2½")
by an unidentified photographer using A116 film and a No. 1A Autographic Kodak or a No. 2A Folding Autographic Brownie camera
Image © and courtesy of Kristin Cleage
Fellow Sepian contributer Kristin Cleage posted this print of a rural family on her blog Finding Eliza a couple of years ago, and kindly assented to my using it to illustrate this article. It is typical of the prints that could be produced from Autographic film, the black left hand border containing a somewhat overexposed caption which is rather hard to read, perhaps indicative of a problem that was sometimes encountered with the Autographic.


No 1A Autographic Kodak (L), No 2A Folding Autographic Brownie (R)
Images © and courtesy of Historic Camera
Assuming that it is a contact print, the size corresponds to A116 film, which was used by both the No. 1A Autographic Kodak and the No. 2A Folding Autographic Brownie cameras, shown above. Kristin believes it was mostly likely taken at the farm of Oscar Barron in Elmore, Alabama, where her great-grandmother Annie Graham was working and living with her four children in 1920.


"Old Bill" - Paper print (40 x 60mm; 1⅝" x 2½")
by an unidentified photographer, undated
using A127 film and a Vest Pocket Kodak Autographic camera
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
Another example of an Autographic print, this one probably taken in the late 1910s or early 1920s and possibly a copy, is from the Gunson-Stewart Album in the Tauranga Heritage Collection. The identity of the subject is unknown, although "Old Bill" could be William Nassau Stewart (1873-1954) of Katikati, maternal uncle of a former owner of the album.


Vest Pocket Kodak Autographic Special
Image © and courtesy of Historic Camera
Unless it is an enlargement rather than a contact print, the print size indicates A127 film, which was used in the Vest Pocket Kodak Autographic Special. Autographic cameras were on sale in New Zealand from at least as early as October 1915 (Advertisement, BOP Times, 1915).


"EAP" Kodak Autographic Print
Image © and courtesy of Fred the Oyster & Flickr
One of the few Autographic images that I did find is this example from Fred the Oyster's Flickr feed, which he scanned (and presumably inverted) from a negative purchased in a junk shop. I have seen very few examples of prints with the Autographic-style caption, and a trawl on the internet produces a similarly meagre catch.

Well known New Zealand photohistorian Bill Main (1990) wrote:

A type of camera which turns up regularly on our doorstep for our museum at the Centre is the Autographic Kodak in all its various shapes and sizes. The paradox of this is the fact that perhaps the rarest item in our collection happens to be photos made with the distinctive Autographic inscription on the print surrounds ... Why this innovation never appealed to the millions of Autographic camera users needs a lot of analysis and study.

and others have described similar experiences (Anon, 2001):

Over the years, at flea markets and antique stores, I've searched through boxes of old snapshots, but I rarely find Autographic prints with notations in the margins. If my experience is typical, then it makes me wonder if the Autographic feature was used very often?

Write it on the film - at the time.    Make every negative more interesting; more valuable by permananently recording, at the time of exposure, the all important - who, when, where. It's a simple and almost instantaneous process with an Autographic Kodak Ask your dealer, or write us for catalogue EASTMAN KODAK CO., Rochester, N.Y., The Kodak City

Eastman Kodak advertisement, 1917
With a little perseverance they can be found - Getty Images has a couple of examples from c.1918 and 1920 - but they are often referred to as a rarity. Judging by the number of Autographic cameras now available on eBay, between 1914 and the late 1930s, when they were discontinued, a huge number (reputedly millions) were sold, so why are there so few extant prints with the caption selvedge? There are several possible explanations:

• There are many more examples, both in private collections and on the web, but they have not been recognised as emanating from Autographic cameras. Searching the web with Google Images retrieves hundreds of images of cameras, but very few photographs produced by them.
• When prints are scanned for display on the web, the tendency is to remove framing and borders for aesthetic reasons. Many captions may also have been removed in the process, making them impossible to identify.
• Despite Eastman Kodak's initial enthusiasm for the innovation, it is conceivable that the majority of Autographic users over the two decades that they were produced just couldn't be bothered to caption each and every snapshot they took.

The text of this Kodak advertisement from 1915 suggests, however, that most prints never have included the captions, even though they may have been inscribed on the negative:

The Autographic records are made on the margins between the exposures. It is not intended that they be made to appear in the prints themselves but that they be simply preserved as an authoritative reference. It is obvious, however, that they may be shown on the print itself - if desired.

Sadly the bulk of the negatives from films exposed during the Autographic era have probably been discarded decades ago, so we may never know.


Vest Pocket Autographic Kodak Special
Image © and courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection
If you have any snapshots in your collection, either prints or original negatives, that include the typical Autographic caption, I'd be keen to hear from you, and perhaps to share images of them in a future Photo-Sleuth follow-up. Please email me.

For those readers wanting to match prints and negatives to cameras, this table may be useful. I've also created a Autographic Print Format PDF template with the various format sizes, which may be downloaded and printed out. It's always worth bearing in mind that not all prints are contact prints, i.e. identical in size to the negative from which they were printed. Enlargements were also offered to customers, even in Victorian and Edwardian times, but the vast majority of prints that were produced prior to the 1930s seem to be the much more affordable contact prints.

Film Size	Print/Negative Size	Camera Model(s)
A116	2½" x 4¼" (64 x 108 mm)	1A, 2A
A118	3¼" x 4¼" (83 x 108 mm)	3
A120	2¼" x 3¼" (57 x 83 mm)	1,2
A122	3¼" x 5½" (83 x 140 mm)	3A
A123	4" x 5" (102 x 127 mm)	4 (with conversion back)
A126	4¼" x 6½" (108 x 165 mm)	4A (with conversion back)
A127	1⅝" x 2¼" (41 x 57 mm)	Vest Pocket
A130	2⅞" x 4⅞" (73 x 124 mm)	2C

Acknowledgements

Kristin Cleage and Fiona Kean kindly assented to my use of Autographic prints, the former from her personal archives, the latter from the Tauranga Heritage Collection. Fiona also went to some trouble to assist with obtaining photographs of several Autographic cameras from the collection, for which I am most grateful.

References

Duke University Libraries Digital Collections, Emergence of Advertising in America Collection.

Eastman Autographic film, on Early Photography

Advertisement, Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 6506, 6 October 1915, Page 4, courtesy of Papers Past.

Anon (1914) $300,000 Won by a Young Inventor, The New York Times, 10 July 1914.

Anon (2001) Eastman Kodak Size A118 Autographic Film Cartridge, Scott's Photographic Collection.

Chocrón, Daniel Jiménez (2013) No. 1 Autographic Kodak Junior, on From the Focal Plane to Infinity.

Coe, Brian (1978) Cameras, from Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures, United States: Crown Publishers, 240pp.

Gustavson, Todd (2009) Camera, A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital, New York: Sterling, 360pp.

Macpherson, Alan M D (nd) Kodak - No. 2 Autographic Brownie, on Classic Cameras.

Main, Bill (1990) Kodak Autographic Special, New Zealand Centre for Photography, 10 Cameras Exhibition [retrieved 12 March 2013 from cache on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine].

West, Nancy Martha (2000) "Let Kodak Keep the Story" - Narrative, Memory, and the Selling of the Autographic Camera during World War I, in Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia, University of Virginia Press, Ch 6, p.166-199.

Edward Smith of Derby: Enlargements and Portraits in Oil

Following on from a charcoal-embellished portrait discussed in the previous article on Photo-Sleuth, an further example of a photographic portrait embellished to a high degree would, I think, be instructive.


Mary Ellen Storer (1873-1957) of 24 Talbot Street, Derby
Enlarged and coloured print by Edward Smith of Derby
Image © and courtesy of Chris Underhill
There is little evidence from the appearance of this potrait of a seven year-old girl, painted in oils on an oval piece of thick card measuring 182 x 231mm (slightly larger than 7" x 9"), that it is anything other than a simple oil painting. That is, except for the unpainted bits at the top and bottom of the oval which reveal the unexposed photographic emulsion on a thin paper print pasted to the card, and a hint of the girls clothing showing through the border of pale brown wash. The rough nature of this pale brown border suggests that it would have been mounted passe partout and framed behind glass.


Reverse of print by Edward Smith of Bramble Street, Derby, dated 1881
Image © and courtesy of Chris Underhill
The back of the card, however, reveals a printed label (measuring 118 x 171mm) for the West-End Photographic Studio of Edward Smith:

WEST-END PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO Bramble Street, Curzon St., Derby --------------------------------------------------- EDWARD SMITH, PROPRIETOR. --------------------------------------------------- CARTES-DE-VISTE 4s. PER DOZEN Portraits for Lockets, Brooches, &c. Cartes, Vignettes, Cabinet Portraits, PORTRAITS IN OIL, WATER COLORS, CRAYONS, &c. Copying & Enlarging expeditiously and cheaply executed. --------------------------------------------------- EDWARD SMITH, PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO BRAMBLE STREET, DERBY. --------------------------------------------------- The Rowditch Buss runs by every Half-hour. Simpson, Printer, St. Peter's Street, Derby.

Edward Smith was a former jeweller who operated a photographic studio from his home, first in Upper Brook Street, later Bramble Street, in Derby's West End, from 1861 until at least 1901. His entries in the 1871 and 1881 Censuses show him as an artist so, even though his photographic portraits tend to be competent rather than inspiring, it is not surprising to find an example of his advertised "portraits in oil," handily dated 1881, midway through his career. The photographic print on which the painted portrait is based would probably have been enlarged from a cabinet portrait format to roughly double the original size of the glass plate negative.

Apart from the photograph/painting, the advertisement on the label may also be used to illustrate the affordability of portraits to ordinary folk. He advertises cartes de visite at four shillings per dozen, and a single portrait could be had for a shilling. Given that the average weekly cash wage for the ordinary agricultural labour in England at this time was between 11 and 15 shillings, and that of a high end skilled industrial worker was 30 shillings, it was perhaps still something of a luxury, but was definitely affordable to a large majority of the population.

I make this point because I often come across the assertion by family historians that their ancestors were probably too poor to afford such luxuries as having their portraits taken in a photographic studio, used on occasion to explain an absence of such portraits from the family archives. From what I have read, both in contemporary and current literature, during the heyday of carte de visites in the late 1860s, 1870s and 1880s such portraits were well within the reach of most families.


1872 carte de visite mount by A.L. Henderson of London
It is also informative to compare this advertised price with the 5s./doz from the well known and prolific A.L. Henderson of London in 1872, and a similar 5s./doz from F.W. Broadhead of Leicester in 1887. It seems likely that Smith catered for the lower to middle section of the market, perhaps one step above an itinerant photographer whose name might be absent from the card mount. Certainly his portraits do not have quite the professional finish that studios such as those of Pollard Graham and W.W. Winter.

References

Jay, Bill (1980) Prices of Photographs, from Bill Jay On Photography

Robert Hirsch (2009) The Carte de Visite and the Photo Album, in Seizing the Light: A Social History of Photography, Second edition (McGraw-Hill, 2009), Chapter 4, Section 5, reproduced on Luminous Lint.

Payne, Brett (2007) The carte-de-visite - fit for the Queen and commoners alike, on Photo-Sleuth, 28 August 2007.

Payne, Brett (2011) Sepia Saturday 70: A boy and his toy, on Photo-Sleuth, 15 April 2011.

Portraits in Sepia ... and Charcoal

Joan Hill has a blog Roots'n'Leaves through which she shares memories, family history, and of course old photographs, many of which form part of her regular contributions to Sepia Saturday. Joan recently sent me some images of an old photographic portrait, framed and mounted behind glass. She was wondering whether the subject could be her great-grandfather, and was therefore looking for an approximate date that it could have been taken.


The frame is a fairly typical moulded and painted papier-mache on wood frame, common in the latter part of the 19th Century. The moulding appears to have worn or broken off on the two lower corners, revealing the plain wooden base underneath, again not unusual for a frame of that age and quality.


Joan was able to remove the picture from the frame, but at 16" x 20" (400 x 500mm) it was too large to fit on her scanner so she photographed it. She also noticed an unusual feature of the photograph:

I was surprised when I took the picture out of the frame; it appeared to have a charcoal overlay on all of the dark surfaces. (When my finger tips brushed the edge of the picture, there was a dark residue and the picture actually felt like charcoal.) Was this charcoal overlay a style? If so, about when was this popular? There is a halo effect around [the head], but that is created primarily by how the "charcoal" was applied.

The portrait is of a style quite commonly produced in the late 19th and early 20th Century. I believe it was originally a photographic portrait, almost certainly with a camera which used glass plate negatives (probably 4" x 6"), but then enlarged roughly by a factor of four to produce the print which you now have in your possession.

One of the side effects of such enlargements from smaller negatives is that any blemishes or imperfections in the original, including a lack of contrast between light and dark shades, would be enlarged and/or enhanced in appearance. As a result, such enlargements were often retouched or embellished in a variety of ways. In some cases the customer might even have requested, for example, a special colouring of the portrait, whatever the quality of the black & white or sepia version.

These effects were achieved using pencil, charcoal, pastels, water colours or oil paints, and I've discussed a number of examples of retouched or otherwise modified portraits previously on Photo-Sleuth:

• Collodion positives: Early coloured portraits in Derby
• Gilding the lily: Hand colouring of carte de visite portraits
• A coloured portrait by Lawrence Brothers of Cape Town: A carte de visite finished in oils
• The Man with Piercing Blue Eyes: Retouching of early albumen prints
• Annie Orchard's crowning glory: A coloured opalotype from Derby
• "Portraits enlarged up to life size": Enlargement, framing and colouring from cabinet-sized glass plate negatives
• Hand coloured enlargements of a Yorkshire sailor and his wife: Enlargements finished in oils
• Crimson curtains and carpets of burgundy: Photographic portraits finished in oils
• A family tintype portrait from the 1890s: Retouching of cheap tintypes
• Jerome - "Studios Everywhere": Postcard portraits finished in water colour

Sometimes the retouching was so extensive that little was left of the original photograph. Usually the medium used for the retouching would later be "fixed," but in this case that does not seem to have happened, perhaps because it was to be mounted immediately under glass. Besides, they wouldn't have had access to the wide variety of fixatives that are available today.

As far as a date is concerned, it is difficult to be very precise, but I estimate from the style of portrait and the man's clothing that it was taken in the mid- to late 1880s or early 1890s. Part of the reason for my uncertainty is that this particular style of enlargement/retouching with charcoal was a good deal more common in North America (particularly the United States) than in England.

Hand coloured enlargements of a Yorkshire sailor and his wife

As advertised by photographers on the reverse of their card mounts, studios offered enlargements finished in oils, watercolours or crayons. Of course, they are not as common as the ordinary cdvs and cabinets, but one does come across them fairly frequently on eBay, and I suspect they are perhaps even more common in family collections. A recent posting included a framed enlargement. The two hand coloured photographic enlargements shown above, with a cabinet card and carte de visite for size comparative purposes only, are from my own collection. They are on roughly trimmed, very thick card measuring approximately 140 x 205 mm and, from the marks at top and bottom, it is clear that have previously been mounted in some sort of frame. Some pencilled notes, only partly decipherable, regarding the colouring of the portrait can be found on the reverse of the first enlargement, as well as what appears to be a negative number (37433). Also written on the reverse, in a different hand, and in what appears to be ball point pen (and therefore certainly not contemporary with the portrait itself) is an identification of the subject: "Robert Hardwick, Died at sea off Farne Islands, Jan 13th 1895, Aged 54." The second portrait has a similar ball point pen inscription on the reverse, "Emma Hardwick, wife of Robert Hardwick," and a negative number (37434?) From the style of the woman's clothing, I estimate that the portraits were taken in the early 1890s, perhaps between 1890 and 1893. Although it's more difficult to estimate ages in portraits that have been "doctored" in this manner, I would say that the couple are aged about 50, approximating to the age indicated on the reverse of the first photo. After some research, I was able to locate Robert and Emma Hardwick on the 1871 Census, and then tracked the family through the census and other records: 1871 Census: Auckland Place, Lower East St, Middlesbrough DUR PRO Ref. RG10/4890/6/6/27: Robert HARDWICK / Head / M / M / 31 / Sailor / Bristol Emma HARDWICK / Wife / M / F / 29 / - / YKS Leeds Martha Ann HARDWICK / Dau / - / F / 12 / Scholar / YKS Middlesbrough Thomas H. HARDWICK / Son / - / M / 11 / Scholar / YKS Middlesbrough Rose H. HARDWICK / Dau / - / F 8 / Scholar / YKS Middlesbrough Catherine HARDWICK / Dau / - / F / 6 / Scholar / YKS Middlesbrough Emma E. HARDWICK / Dau / - / F / 1 / - / YKS Middlesbrough Mary WILD / Visit / - / Wid / F / 57 / - / YKS Willoby Robert Hardwick was born in Clifton, near Bristol in 1839, son of a mariner Robert Hardwick senior and his wife Catharine. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Middlesbrough in Yorkshire - Robert's father had been born in Robin Hood's Bay, a village near Whitby, where Captain James Cook learnt his trade as a seaman. In 1867 Robert Hardwick junior married a widow, Emma Ratcliff née Wild, and the 1871 Census shows Emma's three children by her first husband (Martha Ann, Thomas Herbert and Rose Hannah) living with them. Emma had another five children with Robert: Catherine (Kate) was born in 1864, Emma Elizabeth in 1869, Robert in 1873, Arthur in 1877, and finally John Frederick in 1879. The presence of small corsages in the buttonholes of Robert and Emma Hardwick suggests that they had these portraits taken on a special occasion. Perhaps it was the marriage of their daughter Emma Elizabeth to Ernest Edward Robinson, which took place in Middlesbrough in late 1891. The 1891 Census shows Robert away, presumably at sea. 1891 Census: 12 Baxter St, Middlesbrough YKS PRO Ref. RG12/4010/15/23/123: Emma HARDWICK / Wife / M / F / 49 / - / YKS Leeds Emma E. HARDWICK / Dau / S / F / 24 / Dressmaker / YKS Middlesbrough Robert C. HARDWICK / Son / S / M / 17 / Clerk / YKS Middlesbrough Arthur HARDWICK / Son / - / M / 14 / Office Boy / YKS Middlesbrough J. Fred HARDWICK / Son / - / M / 12 / Scholar / YKS Middlesbrough Rose H. RATCLIFF / StepDau / - / S / F / 29 / Domestic Servant / YKS Middlesbrough Mary WILD / MoLaw / Wid / F / 78 / Living on her own means / YKS Selby Bulmer's Directory of Middlesbrough for 1890 (from Genuki) and Kelly's Directory of the North & East Ridings of Yorkshire for 1893 (from Historical Directories) show the following professional photographers operating in Middlesbrough: - Charles John, 203 Newport rd. - Gibbs Robert William & Co. 18 Wilson st. (formerly manager of Cleveland Photographic Co., Linthorpe road) - Phillip & Wright, 75 Albert rd. All three of these premises were with a short distance of the centre of Middlesbrough, and any of them could therefore have been the studio visited by the Hardwicks.