India, Southeast Asia, and Africa cartes-de-visite album
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India, Southeast Asia, and Africa cartes-de-visite album, circa 1860s, Ms. Coll. 1540, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.
India, Southeast Asia, and Africa cartes-de-visite album containing 37 albumen print by various photographers and studios. Largely portrait images of individuals.
The carte de visite, also known as a CDV, was a photographic format first produced in the 1850s, and which became popular in the 1860s. CDVs consist of a small photographic print mounted on card stock measuring approximately 2 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches. Often cards were stamped with the name of the photographer or the studio on the back.
French photographer A. A. Disdéri, patented a process in 1854 for printing up to carte de visite images and played the most prominent role in the invention and the popularization of the CDV format.
Photography arrived in India in the 1840s and by the 1860s photo studios were set up in all the major cities in India under British control. As these images grew in popularity, mass production offered opportunity for not only royal and upper class citizens, but also for middle class individuals to get their portraits taken.
Sources:
Carte de Visite Collection. Carte de Visite Collection - Digital Commonwealth. (n.d.). https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/collections/commonwealth:44558j44c
Avehi Menon / February 2, 2021 / Spotlight (2021) Think small: Carte de visites, Cabinet Cards & Travelling Portraits, Sarmaya. Available at: https://sarmaya.in/spotlight/think-small-carte-de-visites-cabinet-cards-travelling-portraits/ (Accessed: 23 August 2023).
The India, Southeast Asia and Africa album of cartes-de-visite, circa. 1860s contains 37 albumen print by various photographers and studios, displayed recto and verso in thick card mounts.
This photographic collection of cartes-de-visite features images mostly of Indian sitters, together with portraits from Southeast Asia, Cochinchina, and Africa (including Zanzibar). Some images feature captions below portraits.
Some photographs are unidentified. A few studios are identified on the backs of some of the photographs include: J.L. Eyckerman's Peintre-photographe, St. Denis, Ille de la reunion; Ritter, Molkenteller, Bombay and Poona; and Bourne &h; Shepherd, an Indian photographic studio and one of the oldest established photographic businesses in the world established in 1863
Sold by Sotheby's (New York, NY), 2021.
Accessioned as 2021.000111. Samantha Dodd processed, wrote and encoded the finding aid, 2023.
University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts
Finding Aid Author
Samantha Dodd
Finding Aid Date
2023 August 10
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This collection is open for research use.
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