Late 1800’S Antique Cartes De Visite Portrait Photographs x 16 #62565-7

Here we have a collection of 16 different portrait photographs from the late 1800s. All photos shown in this listing are included in this bulk lot. They are in varying condition with some fading/discolouration from age as shown in the photos. The reverse of most photo’s have markings and logos from the photographer.

The carte de visite was a format of small photograph which was patented in Paris by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854, although first used by Louis Dodero.

Each photograph was the size of a visiting card, and such photograph cards, in an early form of social media, were commonly traded among friends and visitors in the 1860s. Albums for the collection and display of cards became a common fixture in Victorian parlors. The popularity of the format and its rapid uptake worldwide were due to their relative cheapness, which made portrait photographs accessible to a broader demographic, and prior to the advent of mechanical reproduction of photographs, led to the publication and collection of portraits of prominent persons. It was the success of the carte de visite that led to photography’s institutionalisation. The reverse was generally printed with the logo of the photographer or the photography studio from which it came, as protection of copyright or as advertising.