Carte de Visite

名刺判写真 / 1854–1900s / Style / Publishing and Editing

Disdéri patented a card-sized portrait made in quantity. Printing eight poses on a single glass plate made portraiture cheap enough to democratize it, and the collecting of celebrity cards and the album culture around them are where the shared face begins.

Carte de Visite — Carte de visite by Disdéri 1860s — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Carte de visite by Disdéri 1860s — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Carte de Visite — Rosa Bonheur, c. 1858 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Rosa Bonheur, c. 1858 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Carte de Visite — Collage album of cartes de visite (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 1850s–90s — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 — Collage album of cartes de visite (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 1850s–90s — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 · CC0

At a glance

Visual cues

Card-sized mounts
Full-length studio poses
The studio's logo on the back
Album collecting

Best used for

Rosters and membership cards that need faces in one consistent format
Small portrait cards produced in quantity to be handed out

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Dictionary entry

Type: Issuer name and ornamental frame on the back, image alone on the front
Composition: Stand the figure full length with backdrop and props naming their station
Material: Mount on card and print several identical poses at once
Caution: The more each card is staged differently, the less the set works when laid out together, and the pleasure of collecting and comparing disappears.
Further study: Disdéri's patent / the celebrity card trade / the lineage to social avatars

Related entries

Daguerreotype (ダゲレオタイプ)Shared effects: Nostalgia.Compare Carte de Visite and Daguerreotype
Stereograph (ステレオ写真)Shared effects: Nostalgia.Compare Carte de Visite and Stereograph

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