Various Artists
[Carte-de-Visite Album of Famous Personages]

Public Domain

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Artist Various Artists

CultureUnknown

Titles

[Carte-de-Visite Album of Famous Personages]

Date1860s-1870s

MediumAlbum of albumen silver prints

DimensionsOverall: 11 5/8 × 9 13/16 × 2 15/16 in. (29.5 × 25 × 7.5 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the S. I. and Susie Morris Photography Endowment

Object number2019.242

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS

DescriptionThe introduction of the carte-de-visite portrait, promoted and popularized by the French photographer André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri in the mid-1850s, brought photography to the middle class and celebrity to many of nobler rank. The inexpensive eight-at-a-time method of making cartes de visite encouraged trading portraits with friends and family, along with collecting pictures of notable public figures, fueling a cult of celebrity. This album is filled with portraits of the British royal family, politicians, and writers, including Charles Dickens, Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Ruskin, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, each portrait identified with a beautifully calligraphic inscription.
ProvenanceJames Hughes Gamble, New Hampshire; [...]; ["an antique store in Meredith, New Hampshire"]; purchased by Richard and Kellie Gutman, 1985; purchased by MFAH, 2019.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Etched, album cover, bottom center: J.H.G.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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