About Carte de Visite Photographs
Carte-de-visites were small portrait photographs created using a process patented by the Parisian photographer Andre Disderi in 1854. He used a multi-lensed camera to produce eight small images on one large glass negative. Contact prints were made from these, when cut up the resulting portraits were trimmed to 57mm by 89mm and pasted on cards 63mm by 102mm. The photographers name and address was usually printed together with a simple logo on the back of the card.
Cartomania comes to Britain
The first cartes were introduces in 1857, they to some time to catch on, but after J.E.Mayall in 1860 had the good fortune to photograph Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and the royal children, the fashion quickly caught on. The number of studios in London grew from 160 in 1861 to 284 studios in 1866. Studios appeared to cater for this new art in most medium sized towns each studio producing from 20,000 to 80,000 cartes a year. As well as family photographs studios looked out for well known persons, Royal family, Bishops, M.P's anyone who was in the public eye, for to get one of these in your studio only for a few minutes, proved to be money in the bank for years! They were offered for sale in the Studio window and such was the demand to see an image of people they had heard of but would never meet that they were soon sold out. So in many albums are the pictures of famous personages totally unrelated to the family who's pictures adorn the pages.
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