Portraits from the first 100 years of photography
When I saw the carte-de-visite above, I wondered if it was a real scene or an elaborate joke. Could they really have sailed on ice? It turns out they could have! The sport is called ice yachting, and that's all I know about it. The guys to the left of the boat are skating and... Continue Reading →
One hundred and fifty-four years ago this week, seven friends sat for a portrait at Nathaniel L. Merrill's Photographic Gallery in Springfield, Vermont. They look young enough to be in high school, or perhaps recent graduates. The carte-de-visite photo has a revenue stamp on the back, affixed and cancelled by the photographer on December 22,... Continue Reading →
This carte-de-visite is part of a series called "Costumes de Suisse," published around 1869 by French photographer Adolphe Braun (1812-1877). Braun's studio was in Alsace, France, in the village of Dornach, near the borders with Germany and Switzerland. Each photo in the series presents a young woman in a traditional costume from a particular Swiss... Continue Reading →
November 8: Thanks to the research efforts of my brilliant readers, I'm able to update this post with information about the group above. The following quotes in italics are from a web page, Friends War Victims Relief Committee in the Franco-Prussian War, on the site quakersintheworld.org: The first official Friends War Victims Relief Committee (FWVRC)... Continue Reading →
They must be two sets of twins. The back of this CDV doesn't tell us anything about them, but it does identify the photographer, C. W. Gill. I didn't find anything about Gill online. The Hubbard Block was built on Public Square by Volney Stow Hubbard in 1868, which is about when this photo was... Continue Reading →
The day of the party has arrived. She and her friends have been working on their dresses for weeks. "Let's take pictures!" "I don't know, I have a lot of things left to do. Maybe later." "It'll only take a few minutes to set up the camera. We might be too busy later." "You're right. ... Continue Reading →
The two cartes-de-visite above were made by Henry Cushing in Windsor, Vermont, in February 1865. Windsor is on the Connecticut River, which forms the boundary between Vermont and New Hampshire. The town is connected to Cornish, NH, by the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge, the longest wooden covered bridge in the United States. Coincidentally, the portraits were... Continue Reading →
The two cartes-de-visite on this page came from an antiques dealer in Greenfield, Massachusetts, in the northwest part of the state. On the back of the carte above is the name Adolphe with a question mark: The portrait was made at the studio of E.v. Eggert, which probably stood for Emmanuel von Eggert (see... Continue Reading →
The name "L.C. Pike" is written on the back of this carte-de-visite. Generally a name on the back of a portrait refers to the sitter, but not always, so it's important to try to find corroborating information. I searched on Ancestry for an L.C. Pike who was about forty years old in the early 1860s and... Continue Reading →
The young man appearing on this carte-de-visite could be certain everyone would remember his profession. You might even say he was in tune with the latest trends in advertising and self-promotion. The one thing he neglected to do was write his name on the back, which is a pity. The CDV was made by James... Continue Reading →
I'm guessing about the relationships between the sitters in the previous post and this one. Do you think the baby in the portrait above looks like the one below? I think this may be the same child, a little older: A year ago today, on April 23, I published my first blog... Continue Reading →
A few months ago a photo dealer in Arkansas listed the contents of a small 19th century album on eBay. The original owners of the album weren't identified, but some of the portraits had the names and addresses of photographers printed on them. The studios were located in Mobile and Talladega, Alabama. Some of the... Continue Reading →
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