André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri
Count and Countess Tyszkiewicz

Public Domain

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Artist André Adolphe-Eugène DisdériFrench, 1819–1889

CultureFrench

Titles

Count and Countess Tyszkiewicz

Date1860

MediumAlbumen silver print from multiple glass negatives

DimensionsImage: 7 7/8 × 9 1/8 in. (20.1 × 23.1 cm)
Sheet: 7 7/8 × 9 1/8 in. (20 × 23.2 cm)
Mount: 10 3/8 × 13 3/4 in. (26.4 × 34.9 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mike and Mickey Marvins

Object number2014.934

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Marvins Family Collections

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionIn 1854, A. A. E. Disdéri patented a system for cheaply and quickly producing cartes de visite—photographs the size of a visiting card, exposed eight per glass-plate negative, developed and printed as a unit, then cut into eighths and mounted to cards for distribution to friends and family. This rare, uncut sheet from the Disdéri archive shows how various poses could be captured on a single negative with a multi-lens camera. His system was widely adopted by other photographers in the years and decades that followed, bringing photographic portraiture within the grasp of nearly everyone, whether a count and countess or a cook.
ProvenanceAuction; [Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco]; purchased by Michael Marvins and Michele Marvins, Houston; given to MFAH, 2014.
Exhibition History“A Photographer’s Collection: Gifts from Michael and Michele Marvins,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 4–July 5, 2015.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Inscribed in ink on image recto, center left: 20692
Inscribed in ink on a paper label inserted bottom of mount recto: 20692 Cte Ctess Tyszkewitz 1860
Inscribed in pencil, verso right edge reading vertically: 20692 X Cte Tyszkiewicz; in blue marker reading vertically: 20692

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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