25 to 36 of 69
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L. Caldesi & Co. - William M. Thackeray
L. Caldesi & Co.
William M. Thackeray
$120
J. H. Larrabee - Hon. Edward Everett
J. H. Larrabee
Hon. Edward Everett
$1,250
London Stereoscopic Co. - William M. Thackeray
London Stereoscopic Co.
William M. Thackeray
$110
H. Mairet - Sarah Bernhardt in Racine's Phaedra
H. Mairet
Sarah Bernhardt in Racine's Phaedra
$350
Duc de Massa - Self Portrait in Theatrical Costume and Sword
Duc de Massa
Self Portrait in Theatrical Costume and Sword
$2,500
Duc de Massa - Self Portrait Sitting at a Table Reading a Paper
Duc de Massa
Self Portrait Sitting at a Table Reading a Paper
$2,500
Farnham Maxwell Lyte (attributed to) - Portrait of a Young French Naval Officer
Farnham Maxwell Lyte (attributed to)
Portrait of a Young French Naval Officer
$3,500
John Jabez or Edwin Mayall - Portrait of William Gladstone and the Nomination for Election of Gladstone for Greenwich by William Angerstein
John Jabez or Edwin Mayall
Portrait of William Gladstone and the Nomination for Election of Gladstone for Greenwich by William Angerstein
$450
Mayer Freres - Marie Cabel, French Actress
Mayer Freres
Marie Cabel, French Actress
$3,500
Felix and Adrien Tournachon Nadar - Composer Gioachino Rossini (Dedicated and Signed by Composer and Signed by Photographer)
Felix and Adrien Tournachon Nadar
Composer Gioachino Rossini (Dedicated and Signed by Composer and Signed by Photographer)
$30,000
Felix Nadar - Portrait of French author Théophile Gautier
Felix Nadar
Portrait of French author Théophile Gautier
$7,500
Nadar (and painted by E. Vieusseux) - Charles-Albert Costa de Beauregard in Military Uniform with Sword
Nadar (and painted by E. Vieusseux)
Charles-Albert Costa de Beauregard in Military Uniform with Sword
P.O.R.
By Matt Damsker

Photography's early decades were marked by an explosion of photo-portraiture in Great Britain, America and on the European continent. This exhibit collects a rich trove of vintage paper portraits, including wet-plate albumen and salt prints, cartes-de-visite, mounted oval cuts, and other diversely interesting specimens.

The authors range from anonymous photographers to great names in 19th-century artistry: Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll, Gustave Le Gray, and studio masters such as Andre Adolphe-Eugene Disderi and Pierre-Louis Pierson. Indeed, as a cross-section of European and American portrait photography at a moment of high energy and discovery, this collection is as compelling as it is vast.

The energy and discovery are evident in the large-family portraits, in which parents and children are massed together, making the most of the era’s first surge of domestic photo-documentation. These images convey the rich variety of family life, when it was not uncommon for parents to raise ten or more children. Other portraits are more eccentric, from Parisian street performers gathered in a studio to experimental images of, for example, painters depicted self-importantly (if not self-satirically) surrounded by their ornate picture frames.

As for style, the muted atmospheric touch of Julia Margaret Cameron always stands out in such photo assemblages, where studio portraiture and its conventions are the norm. Cameron was more expressively engaged--if not expressionistic--in her studies of the famous and the familial, and she captured abstract emotion like few others. Then there are the charming family images of Lewis Carroll, the great Victorian author and Londoner, who photographed subjects in English garden settings that convey a warm sense of place.

Similarly, Philadelphia's great painter, Thomas Eakins, captured family images with a pictorial eye, and the photography attributed to Eakins is excellent complement to Carroll's prints. As for the many others, the studio prevails in striking images of royalty, the rich and their children, by the likes of Pierre Louis-Pierson, while the magisterial work of Le Gray, Hill and Adamson, and images attributed to Nadar are all classic studies of the people who defined this transitional era in the arts and society.

19th-Century Paper Portraits
About This Exhibit
Image List

Exhibited and Sold By
Contemporary Works / Vintage Works, Ltd.

258 Inverness Circle
Chalfont, Pennsylvania   18914   USA

Contact Alex Novak and Marthe Smith

Email info@vintageworks.net

Phone +1-215-518-6962

Call for an Appointment

 

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