The carte de visite (, English: 'visiting card', abbr. 'CdV', pl. cartes 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 in 1851.
Each photograph was the size of a formal visiting card about 4½ x 2½ inches (11.4 x 6.3 cm) and such photograph cards, in what has been called 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 thrift, 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.
History
Format The carte de visite was usually an albumen print from a collodion negative on thin paper glued onto a thicker paper card. The size of a carte de visite is × (approximately the size of a business card), mounted on a card sized × . The reverse was generally printed with the logo of the photographer or the photography studio from which it came, as both protection of copyright and advertising, and sometimes carried instructions for effective posing.
Camera
The daguerreotype for portrait photography had met with immediate and widespread popularity and quickly displaced the portrait miniature and its cheaper versions, the silhouetteFreund, Gisèle (1974), Photographie et société, Éditions du Seuil, p. 8-18, retrieved 18 April 2016 and the physionotrace.Cromer 'Le secret du physoniotrace Bulletin de la société archéologique, historique et artistique, ´Le Vieux Papier,' 26th year, October 1925 However its technologies were limited; a single copy was made in the camera could be reproduced only by copying the original onto another plate. The carte-de-visite provided a wet collodion negative from which could be made multiple prints, in a standardised format, with cheaper materials, thus permitting production on an industrial scale. Consequently, it was even more affordable than the daguerreotype.
Special cameras were designed with multiple lenses for their efficient production. Disdéri's 1854 patent was a camera of taking eight separate negatives on a single plate in a special holder. Rather than one large collodion plate being used to produce one image of the posed subject, Disdéri's design initially exposed ten images on one plate, exposed either simultaneously or in sequence.
Each individual carte print was made at a fraction of the cost of producing one full-plate picture and ten were printed at once, saving time and thus efficiently serving the burgeoning consumer market for photography. Disdéri's patent was modified when making four images was found to be more practical, and in March 1860 optician Hyacinthe Hermagis patented a four-lens camera with a sliding back that became the standard. Désiré Monckhoven reported in 1859; We saw at M. Hermagis' a magnificent device, consisting of 4 identical double lenses mounted on a double frame camera built by M. Besson. This device, in a single operation, provides a plate on which 8 copies of the same image appear with perfect clarity. It seems that in the big cities, such as Paris, London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, these cartes de visite are widely used, so the device we saw at M. Hermagis' enjoys considerable success.
Enlargements Cartes de visite were made using a contact print—by placing the negative in contact with the albumen paper under glass and exposing the sandwiched materials to a light source. No enlarger was required.
Nevertheless, the development of the solar camera enabled enlargements of cartes up to life-size, often hand-coloured and retouched so that they rivalled the painted portrait, and could be framed and displayed. Prominent London photographer the French-born Antoine Claudet lectured on the technology to the British Association in Oxford in June 1860, and in 1862 presented "On the means of following the small divisions of the scale regulating the distances and enlargement in the solar camera" at the British Association for the Advancement of Science in October. Earlier that year he exhibited a number of life-size portrait enlargements from carte de visite negatives at the 1862 World Fair, which were praised as 'magnificent' and 'without distortion'.The Morning Post, Sat, 19 April 1862, p.5
Popularity
France The carte de visite was slow to gain widespread use until 1859, when Disdéri published Emperor Napoleon III's photos in this format. This made the format an overnight success; as Disdéri was to boast; "Everyone knows how I suddenly became popular by inventing the carte de visite which I had patented in 1854." He charged 20 francs for twelve photographs when previously a single print would cost 50 to 100 francs, so that portraits were suddenly available at a cost that the lower middle classes could afford. The new invention was so popular that "cardomania" spread quickly throughout Europe and then to the rest of the world.
Britain In England John Jabez Edwin Mayall in Regent Street announced in August 1860 that he had; ...just received the Royal permission to publish a series of portraits which had been previously taken of the Royal family and of several other illustrious personages who have the honour of being intimate friends of her Majesty. These charming portraits are of miniature size; some of them are mounted on cards, and opposite to that of the Queen in the catalogue we find it described as a carte de visite. A complete series is placed upon a screen, in the centre of which are large portraits of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in military uniform, and his Royal Highness Prince Alfred in the dress of a midshipman in the Royal navy. Besides the single.figure portraits of the Royal family, there are several most delightful groups of them variously arranged [...] These portraits having been entirely divested of all appearance of Royal state, possess an air of novelty, and the illustrious personages being represented as if perfectly unconscious of the photographer's presence, and engaged in their ordinary occupations, seem to afford the public a legitimate peep into the privacy of the Royal apartments, and give a decided charm to this publication [...] purchasers may, while they have the satisfaction of displaying their loyalty, also have the pleasure of selecting those arrangements of the portraits to which they may give a preference. The whole series, including the personal friends of her Majesty, amounts to 32 portraits, and are very beautiful specimens of the photographic art.Mayall's publication of a carte-de-visite album of the Royal Family influenced the growing demand from the Victorian public for their own family photographic albums.
Germany In Germany, Emperor Wilhelm I encouraged this pictorial culture by investing approximately 120 studios with the imprimatur of Hofphotograph (court photographer), based on the cartes that each had made of the kaiser, flatteringly posed with his gloved right fist planted powerfully on a table bearing his plumed helmet, and of his family. Millions of his photographs were collected in German family albums.
India By the late 1850s the carte-de-visite had been taken up in India, particularly among the wealthy of Bombay. Hurrychind Chintamon was a successful early Indian photographers who made carte-de visite portraits of literary, political, and business figures, the most famous of which was of the Maharaja of Baroda, thousands of which were circulated.
China While numbers of European photographers visited and practiced in the country, Lai Afong () was a successful Chinese-born photographer who, after working at the studio of Portuguese photographer José Joaquim Alves de Silveira between 1865 and 1867, established Afong Studio in Hong Kong in the late Qing Dynasty from c.1870, and was photographer to Governor of Hong Kong Sir Arthur Kennedy KCB and Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia. Other Chinese photo studios producing cartes de visite in the 1890s include those of Kung Tai (公泰照相樓) and Sze Yuen Ming (上洋耀華照相) in Shanghai, and Pun Lun (繽綸) in Hong Kong.
Africa Frederick York of Cape Town received the first carte-de-visite camera in South Africa as a present from H.R.H. Prince Alfred in February 1861. In 19th-century West Africa, African-born photographers such as John Parkes Decker, Francis W. Joaque and the Lutterodt photographers produced cartes de visite for their upper-class African and expatriate customers.
Spain The arrival of the carte de visite in Spain at the end of the 1850s radically transformed access to photographic portraits. In Madrid, the first studios to adopt this technique were the brothers Alonso Martínez and Jean Laurent, who around 1859 began offering these portraits after trips through Europe where they learned about the latest photographic innovations. The novelty coincided with technical advances such as albumen paper and wet collodion, which facilitated mass production of images.
The main Madrid photographic studios quickly established themselves as references for the new format. Alonso Martínez and brother set up their studio in the Puerta del Sol, standing out for their elaborate scenographies with columns, curtains and characteristic carpets. Jean Laurent, located in the Carrera de San Jerónimo since 1856, became the official photographer of Queen Isabella II in 1860, obtaining authorization to display the royal coat of arms on his cards. Eusebio Juliá, who opened his gallery in 1855, gained a reputation especially for his children's portraits. Pedro Martínez de Hebert, court miniaturist since 1851, stood out for his spectacular panorama murals that recreated luxurious gardens and salons, virtually transporting the subject to fantastic settings.
Initially, the formats lacked standardization, with cardstocks of variable weights and irregular dimensions. The first signatures on the back were simple stamps or handwritten inscriptions, but soon photographers understood their advertising value, creating elaborate lithographic designs that included addresses, medals obtained in exhibitions and royal coats of arms for those who enjoyed the privilege. The studios progressively incorporated painted backgrounds or panoramas that simulated elegant exteriors and interiors, abandoning the initial austere neutral backdrops. Specialties also emerged such as oval busts with blurred effects, hand-illuminated portraits with watercolor, and around 1867, the larger cabinet format introduced by Laurent.
The social and commercial aspect of the cartes de visite generated an unprecedented cultural phenomenon. The prices, initially high, progressively decreased due to competition among the more than seventy studios operating in Madrid around 1865, democratizing access to portraits. The cards were collected in family albums that were displayed at social gatherings, exchanged among relatives and friends as precious gifts. Photographers created commercial catalogs with portraits of the royal family, politicians, bullfighters, dramatic artists and personalities, which any citizen could acquire. The Casa Real strategically used this format as a propaganda tool, commissioning thousands of portraits of Isabella II that were distributed massively, turning the monarchical image into an everyday object present in numerous Spanish homes.