The Ricardo Album

Album portraits, portrait albums and portrait photographers – some early advertisements and articles

Once a Week (London) — 25 January 1862

Wherever in our fashionable streets we see a crowd congregated before a shop window, there for certain a like number of notabilities are staring back at the crowd in the shape of cartes de visite. Certainly our street portrait galleries are a great success; no solemn flights of stairs lead to pompous rooms in which pompous attendants preside with a severe air over pompous portraits; no committee of selection decide on the propriety of hanging certain portraits. Here, on the contrary, social equality is carried to its utmost limit, and Tom Sayers is to be found cheek-by-jowl with Lord Derby, or Mrs. Fry is hung as a pendant to Agnes Willoughby. The only principle governing the selection of the carte de visite portraits is their commercial value, and that depends upon the notability of the person represented.

The commercial value of the human face was never tested to such an extent as it is at the present moment in these handy photographs. No man, or woman either, knows but that some accident may elevate them to the position of the hero of the hour, and send up the value of their countenances to a degree they never dreamed of. For instance, after the great fight with Heenan, Tom Sayers was beset by photographers anxious for the honour of paying for a sitting; but his reply was, “It’s no good gentlemen, I’ve been and sold my mug to Mr. Newbold,” that sporting publisher having seen betimes the advantage of securing the copyright of his phiz. Thus, a new source of income has been opened to first-rate photographers, besides the profit arising from taking portraits. A wholesale trade has sprung up with amazing rapidity, and to obtain a good sitter, and his permission to sell his carte de visite, is in itself an annuity to a man. For instance, all our public men are what is termed in the trade “sure cards” — there is a constant demand for them, a much greater one, indeed, than can be supplied. It must be remembered that every picture has to be printed from the original negative, and the success of the printing process depends upon the weather; in foggy, dark days no impression can be taken from positives, or cartes de visite already in existence; but the result is a deterioration of the portrait, a plan never resorted to by first-class photographers such as Silvy, or Lock, or Mayall, although dishonest persons are to be found who will commit piracy in this manner for money. The public are little aware of the enormous sale of the cartes de visite of celebrated persons. An order will be given by a wholesale house for 10,000 of one individual — thus £400 will be put into the lucky photographer’s pocket who happens to possess the negative. As might have been expected, the chief demand is for the members of the royal family. Her Majesty’s portraits, which Mr. Mayall alone has taken, sell by the 100,000. No greater tribute to the memory of his late Royal Highness the Prince Consort could have been paid than the fact that within one week from his decease no less than 70,000 of his cartes de visite were ordered from the house of Marion and Co., of Regent-street. This house is by far the largest dealer in cartes de visite in the country; indeed, they do as much as all the other houses put together. The wholesale department of this establishment, devoted to these portraits, is in itself a sight. To this centre flow all the photographs in the country that “will run.” Packed in the drawers and on the shelves are the representative thousands of Englishwomen and Englishmen awaiting to be shuffled out to all the leading shops in the country. What a collection of British faces! If a box or two of them were to be sealed up and buried deep in the ground, to be dug up two or three centuries hence, what a prize they would be to the fortunate finder! Hitherto we have only known our ancestors through the pencils of certain great artists, and the sitters themselves have all belonged to the highest class. Hence we are apt to attribute certain leading expression of countenance to our progenitors which are rather owing to the mannerism of the painters than to the sitters. Thus all Reynold’s beauties possess a certain look in common; if we believed his brush without any reserve, we should fancy that the English race of the latter part of the last century were the noblest looking beings that ever trod the earth. No portrait of man or woman ever came from his easel with a mean look. The same may be said of those of Gainsborough and Hoppner, and the result is that all our knowledge of the faces of the last century is purely conventional. But it is far different with the carte de visite. Here we have the very lines that Nature has engraven on our faces, and it can be said of them that no two are alike. The price, again, enables all the better middle class to have their portraits; and by the system of exchange, forty of their friends (happy delusion) for two guineas!

Let us imagine, then, a box of such pictures discovered of the time of the Commonwealth, for instance, or a few years later. What would we give to have such pictures of old Pepys, his wife, and Mistress Nip? Yet treasures such as these we shall be able to hand down to our posterity, for there is little doubt that photographs of the present day will remain perfect, if carefully preserved, for generations. Silvy alone has the negatives of sitters in number equal to the inhabitants of a large country town, and our great thoroughfares are filled with photographers; there are not less than thirty-five in Regent-street alone, and every suburban road swarms with them; can we doubt therefore that photographic portraits have been taken by the million? Out of these great wholesale houses, such as Marion and Co., have the pick. Every day brings up scores of offers of portraits, which are accepted or not, according to their circumstances. In many cases, the sale is wholly local, in others nearly wholly metropolitan. Some have a perpetual sale; others, again, run like wildfire for a day, and then fall a dead letter. Some special circumstance or action scatters these portraits wholesale; for instance, the pluck displayed by the Queen of Naples resulted in a sale of 20,000 of her portraits; and Miss Jolly was only a month ago the rage in Ireland. The sudden death of a great man, as we have before said, is immediately made known to the wholesale carte de visite houses by an influx of orders by telegraph. There was a report the other day that Lord Palmerston was dead, and his carte de visite was immediately in enormous request; and Lord Herbert to this day sells as well as any living celebrity.

Literary men have a constant sale; Dickens, Thackeray, and Trollope, are bought for every album. Scientific men, again, sell well; but theatrical or operatic celebrities have a run for a short time, owing to some successful performance, and then are not sought for more. The series of Mademoiselle Patti has, however, already circulated to the extent of 20,000 copies. It is a curious fact that the cartes de visite have for the present entirely superseded all other sized photographic portraits. This is rather singular, inasmuch as we did not adopt it until it had been popular in Paris for three years. Possibly, however, the rage has its foundation in two causes. In the first place, a carte de visite portrait is really a more agreeable-looking likeness than larger ones; it is taken with the middle of the lens, where it is truest, hence it is never out in drawing; and then, again, it rather hides than exaggerates any little roughness of the face, which is so apparent in large-sized portraits. Secondly, when a man can get forty portraits for a couple of guineas, his vanity is flattered by being able to distribute his surplus copies among his friends. It enables every one to possess a picture-gallery of those he cares about, as well as those he does not, for we are convinced some people collect them for the mere vanity of showing, or pretending, they have a large acquaintance. There is still another advantage; cartes de visite are taken two at a time, stereoscopically, that is, a little out of the same line, hence solid portraits can be produced by the aid of the stereoscope. When we remember the old style of portrait we were obliged to be contented with, the horrible limning a lover got of his mistress for five guineas; the old monthly nurses they made of our mothers; and the resplendent maiden aunts, with their gold chains, watches, and frightful turbans; and the race of fathers we keep by us in old drawers, gentlemen built up stiffly, and all alike in blue coats, and brass buttons, with huge towels round their necks by way of cravats; when we remember the art at the command of the middle classes not forty years since, we are deeply thankful for the kindness of Sol in taking up the pencil and giving us a glimpse of nature once more. But even the great Apollo himself has his mannerism, and it is easy enough to detect a Silvy, a Lock, a Mayall, a Herbert Watkins, a Maull and Polyblank, or a Claudet carte de visite by the manner in which it is posed, or the arrangement of the light upon it. It is a great mistake to suppose that the art of portrait-taking has degenerated into a mere mechanical trade; the difference between a good photographic portrait and a bad one is nearly as great as between a good miniature and a bad one. How difficult it is to pose a sitter well, and how this difficulty is increased where the artist has to work with the sun! Of old, in the course of three or four sittings, the natural attitude and best expression of the sitter was pretty sure to come out, but now the difficulty is greatly increased; when a picture has to be taken, we say, in half a minute, what natural aptitude the photographic artist ought to possess to seize the best attitude and position at once. To produce a good photograph it requires a thoroughly artistic hand, and that hand must work, also, with the best tools; consequently the lenses now in use for first-rate work are exceedingly valuable, and the stock of cameras required by the producers of our best cartes de visite costs a little fortune.

Then there is, in addition, all the accessories to make up backgrounds — proprietors, in fact — some of them of the stale routine style; for instance, the pillar and the curtain does duty as of old, and many a good honest cockney is made to stand in marble halls who was never in a nobler mansion than a suburban villa in his life. But there are not wanting details in better taste. The French have composed their cartes de visite in this respect with great skill and art. The most elaborate carved wood-work, the rarest statuettes, the most carefully painted distances, figure in these backgrounds, and are shifted and combined in endless variety so as to give every portrait some distinctive character of its own. All these things cost money, and the tendency is to throw the best business into the hands of a few skilled capitalists; and in London half a dozen men entirely command the patronage of the fashionable part of the community.

Monsieur Silvy appears to have made the carte de visite his special study, and has brought to his task all the resources of an artistic mind. No one knows how much depends upon the photographer until he compares a good with a bad sun portrait. That sense of beauty and instinctive art of catching the best monetary pose of the body is a gift which cannot be picked up as a mechanical trade can be. This gift M. Silvy possesses in an eminent degree. And he not only pursues photography as an art, but also as a manufacture; hence the scale and method of his proceedings. A visit of inspection to his studio in Porchester-terrace is full of interest. In walking through the different rooms you are puzzled to know whether you are in a studio or a house of business. His photographic rooms are full of choice works of art in endless number; for it is his aim to give as much variety as possible to the accessories in each picture, in order to accomplish which he is continually changing even his large assortment. Sometimes, when a royal portrait has to be taken, the background is carefully composed beforehand, so as to give a local habitation, as it were, to the figure. The well-informed person, without a knowledge even of the originals, may make a shrewd guess at many of the personages in his book of royal portraits by the nature of the accessories about them. Thus, all the surroundings of the Duc de Montpensier’s daughters are Spanish, whilst his son’s African sojourn is indicated by the tropical scenery. The portraits of members of our own royal family are surrounded with fitting accessories which stamp their rank. As M. Silvy takes every negative with his own hands the humblest as well as most exalted sitter is sure of the best artistic effect that his establishment can produce. This, we feel certain, is the great secret of M. Silvy’s success, as the skill required in taking a good photograph cannot be deputed to a subordinate. But, as we have said, his house is at the same time a counting-house, a laboratory, and a printing establishment. One room is found to be full of clerks keeping the books, for at the West End credit must be given; in another a score of employees are printing from the negatives. A large building has been erected for this purpose in the back-garden. In a third room are all the chemicals for preparing the plates; and again in another we see a heap of crucibles glittering with silver. All the clippings of the photographs are here reduced by fire, and the silver upon them is thus recovered. One large apartment is appropriated to the baths in which the cartes de visite are immersed, and a feminine clatter of tongues directs us to the room in which the portraits are finally corded and packed up. Every portrait is posted in a book and numbered consecutively. This portrait index contains upwards of 7,000 cartes de visite, and a reference to any of them gives the clue to the whereabouts of the negative. Packed as these negatives are closely in boxes of fifties, they fill a pretty large room. It is M. Silvy’s custom to print fifty of each portrait, forty going to the possessor, and ten remaining in stock as a supply for friends. Sometimes individuals will have a couple of hundred impressions, the number varying, of course, according to the extent of the circle. The tact and aptitude of M. Silvy for portrait-taking may be estimated when we inform our readers that he has taken from forty to fifty a day with his own hand. The printing is of course purely mechanical, and is performed by subordinates, who have set afloat in the world 700,000 portraits from this studio alone.

In comparing the Parisian and London cartes de visite it is important to observe the wide difference which exists between the class of portraits that sell. In Paris, actors and singers, and dancers are in demand, to the exclusion of all other kinds of portraits. A majority of these portraits, indeed, are aimed at sensual appetites. Statesmen, members of the legislature, and scientific men, do not sell at all. In England we know how different it is: we want to know our public men — our great lawyers, painters, literary men, travelers, and priests: in France there seems to be no respect or reverence for such people — at least, people do not care to invest a couple of francs on their cartes de visite, and consequently they are not produced. The universality of the carte de visite portrait has had the effect of making the public thoroughly acquainted with all its remarkable men. We know their personality long before we see them. Even the cartes de visite of comparatively unknown persons so completely picture their appearance that when we meet the originals we seem to have some acquaintance with them. “I know that face, somehow,” is the instinctive cogitation, and then we recall the portrait we have a day or two past seen in the windows. As we all know, the value of the photographic portrait has long been understood by the police, and known thieves have the honour of a picture gallery of their own in Scotland-yard; but the photograph is also useful for rogues as yet uncaptured and uncondemned. Thus, when Redpath absconded, it was immediately suspected that a negative of him must be lodged at some of our photographers. The inquiry was made, and one of them was found in Mr. Mayall’s possession. An order was given for a supply to the detective force, and through its instrumentality the delinquent, though much disguised, was arrested on board a steamer sailing from some port in the north of Europe. Possibly, Mr. Peter Morrison’s photograph will be brought into requisition, in order to further the purposes of justice. The amusing and interesting facts in relation to general photography and stereoscopic groups we shall reserve for another paper.

Dundee Advertiser — 30 September 1862

There are few periods of a peaceable man’s life more deserving the proverbial name of un manvais quart d’heure than the space of time he is beguiled into spending in a photographer’s studio. Of itself, the attempt to select your own best expression of countenance is a perplexing effort; and the consciousness that the face you put on, whatever it may be, will be the one by which, in all future time, all who look into your friends’ albums will know you, does not diminish the embarrassment. You have a vague impression, that to look smiling is ridiculous, and to look solemn is still more so. You desire to look intelligent, but you are hampered by a fear of looking sly. You would wish to look as if you were not sitting for your picture; but the effort to do so only fills your mind more completely with the melancholy consciousness that you are. All these conflicting feelings pressing upon your mind at the critical moment are very painful; but they are terribly aggravated by the well-meant interposition of the photographer. To prevent a tremulous motion of your head, which the bewildered state of your feelings render only too probably, he wedges it into a horrible instrument called a headrest, which gives you exactly the appearance as if somebody was holding onto your hair behind. In such a situation you may be pardoned if a somewhat blank look comes over your usually intelligent features. The photographer of course sees this defect, and does his best to remedy it by a little cheerful exhortation; but naturally with no other result than that of making matters much worse. “Just a little expression in your countenance, if you please, sir — perhaps if you could smile,” is a most distressing admonition to receive at such a moment, just when you know that the photographer has his hand upon the cap. If you are weak enough to listen to him, and extemporise, “a little expression,” you come out upon the plate with a horrible leer, looking like the Artful Dodger in the act of relating his exploits. If, as is more probable, you are too much absorbed in the uncomfortableness of your own position to regard his exhortations, you are immortalised with an expression of agonised sternness upon your features, unpleasantly suggestive of a painful internal disorder. There is always too much of the studio in those carte de visite portraits. We do not merely refer to the extraordinary backgrounds which some of these operators employ. Why a respectable old lady is to be represented as sitting without her bonnet in a chair placed upon a Brussels carpet in the middle of a terraced garden, is always very perplexing; and it is equally difficult to understand what the foundation can be for the theory, which seems to have possessed the minds of several of the photographers, that the middle-aged men of England generally spend their lives leaning against a Corinthian pillar, with a heavy curtain flapping about their legs, turning their backs to a magnificent view, and obviously standing in a frightful thorough draught. But the studio shows itself, not only in the accessories, but in the very face of the sitter. The whole scene is reflected there. Portrait photography will be very far from its perfection until the apparatus is rapid enough to take the sitter unawares.

This want of the artis celare artem, which is the great fault in the camera’s performances in portraiture, unfortunately shows itself very strongly in the pictures of the celebrities which line the shops in our great thoroughfares. If the pictures are preserved to after times, posterity will be much puzzled to reconcile the expressions of some of them with the recorded history of their lives. A general, benignant smile upon Lord Derby’s face, a look of decided merryness on Lord John Russell’s, and an aspect of stern and settled gravity upon Lord Palmerston’s, will be a sad perplexity to the physiognomists of the future. Mr. Gladstone’s likeness is more in character. Being possessed of a vivid imagination, he has evidently contrived to persuade himself for the moment that the photographer is a Protectionist, and is mentally engaged in denouncing him with a fury that gives great spirit to the picture. Lord Shaftesbury is as languid as Mr. Gladstone is fierce. Five minutes spent in fruitless efforts to put himself into an attitude that shall satisfy the photographer have evidently left their impress on his face in a look of unutterable weariness. Lord Clyde’s aspect is one of gentle but resolute suffering. Head-rest is written in every line of his features... The diplomatists are naturally more successful. Lord Elgin boldly puts a good face on the matter, and plunges his hand into his pocket. Lord Cowley is not quite so confident of his control over his features, and judiciously hides his face in his hands, pretending to have the toothache. Some of our public men are cruelly treated by the photographers in the matter of accessories. Lord Brougham is represented in the act of making an oration in a passage, which is not a probable situation for a distinguished man to find himself in, unless, indeed, he is in the habit of trying his speeches upon the hall porter. Lord Stanley was unfortunate enough to light upon a photographer who possessed a favourite chair. To common eyes, it is not a very remarkable chair — a common easy chair, lined with Utrecht velvet. But the photographer evidently thought it much more worthy of immortality than his sitter. The picture as sold in the shops is the picture of the chair. One of the accessories is a fragmentary portion of a rising statesman looking over the back of it, not apparently at ease in his very subordinate position. The clergy, on the whole, make much more satisfactory sitters. They are far more accustomed in the practice of their vocation to wear a drilled expression of countenance. Statesmen, when they appear in public, are generally in the act of speaking, and are too much engrossed with what they are saying to find time to compose their features. Clergymen, on the other hand, when they appear in public, are mostly engaged in the more mechanical act of reading, so that they have ample leisure for thinking what the crowds who are looking at them think of them. There is a very large assemblage of them to be seen. In fact, they are the only class which furnish to the shop windows a great many portraits of men perfectly unknown. The picturesque religion of the past, and the comfortable religion of the present, are admirably symbolised by Dr. Manning and Mr. Spurgeon. The typical character of the two creeds is so faithfully preserved that one can hardly believe the figures to be the work of the truthful camera. A caricaturist could not improve upon the contrast between the wasted, ascetic look of the one, and the — very contrary appearance of the other. Mr. Spurgeon is fond of his own portrait, and has bestowed himself upon the public in several different aspects. But he is quite right to be careful that the local habitation of so great a soul should not be forgotten.

The Royal portraits, of course, form the leading feature of the display. A nervous partisan of monarchy might fear that so intimate an acquaintance with Royal physiognomies might be apt to produce the proverbial result of familiarity. In the case of our own Royal family, the constantly increasing sale of the cartes de visite seems to show, on the contrary, that photographic acquaintance has been a considerable stimulus to English loyalty. The Princess Alexandra is still the cause of a formidable obstruction upon the footway in Regent Street. It is to be hoped that when she comes to her future kingdom she will allow her beauty to be reproduced by a more skillful race of artists. In one of the pictures she appears to have fallen into the hands of a military photographer, who looks upon “eyes right” as the most effective of all postures. But, with the exception of our own Royal family, the cause of monarchy is not likely to be much aided by photography. The career of the Emperor of the French has a romance about it which is wholly dissipated by a glance at his picture; and the photographers have been pleased to mar the effect of the Empress’ beauty by taking her with down-looking eyes. This attitude was, no doubt, adopted to avoid the blank expression...which light eyes are apt to present in a photograph; but it gives the Imperial couple the appearance of having been photographed at the close of a conjugal quarrel in which she had decidedly got the worst of it. Anyone who, during the past summer, was inclined to regret, on political grounds, that the Viceroy of Egypt was not made more of at the English Court, is recommended to neutralize these feelings by purchasing his photograph. We will venture to answer for it that the antidote will be complete. What a pity we have not the photographs of the heroes of ancient times! Most of them, if we may believe what history tells us of their lives and conversations, would probably have looked very like Said Pacha.