Submitted by Al …
(Adapted from The Encyclopedia of Photography ©1963)
The carte de visité was an inexpensive photographic portrait mounted on a card of about 2-1/2” x 4”. It was used as a calling card. Invented in France by Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi in 1854, it was introduced into America a few years later.
The carte de visité caused a sensation, and it soon became fashionable to leave them when calling on friends. Albums were sold for these photographs, and collecting pictures in this form became quite a fad. Cartes de visité of famous persons, such as Abraham Lincoln, were also available and very popular. The vogue for this type of picture lasted about ten years.
The carte de visité photo was an outgrowth of the wet plate collodion process which rendered a glass negative from which paper prints could be made relatively easily. The formerly popular daguerreotype process gave a positive image, but since there was no negative, it could not be mass reproduced. In making a carte de visité photo, a wet collodion plate was used for an exposure which ranged from 3 to 30 seconds.
Photographers used a multiple-lens camera and shot many exposures on one plate by changing its position. The prints were large and the separate negatives were small. Prints were made on specially sized albumen paper, a printing-out paper which was exposed to sunlight. A final gold chloride toning gave them their familiar brownish look.
Carte de visité photos usually depicted the subject standing with head rigidly held by a brace. Often persons were posed before an elaborate background, holding a column base or the back of a chair. Nevertheless, the carté de visite had an important effect on the history of photography in the long run, since it led to greater freedom in portraiture.
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