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     MANUSCRIPTS and ARCHIVAL MATERIAL

Cartes-de-visite (card photographs)

 Subject
Subject Source: Art & Architecture Thesaurus
Scope Note: Refers to small-format photographs affixed to card stock, popular in the mid-19th century. They went out of fashion in the 1870s. The photographs were typically portraits and the image was a standard size of 3 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches; they were generally produced by a multiple-lens camera that created several images on a single full-sized negative plate. Full-size prints from the plate were cut into sections measuring 4 x 2 1/2 inches, and the pieces were often mounted on cards, which initially served as visitors' cards; it later became the custom to exchange them on birthdays and holidays, and to collect cartes-de-visite of friends, family members, and celebrities in albums. Examples are card photographs patented by the Parisian photographer André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri in 1854 and similar items produced by Mathew B. Brady and other photographers.

Found in 1 Collection or Record:

Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence carte de visite

 Collection — Box BW 40, Folder: 1
Identifier: MSS 16638
Content Description This collection contains a carte de visite of Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence, a formerly enslaved child. The caption states "A Redeemed Slave Child, 5 years of Age. Redeemed in Virginia by Catherine S. Lawrence; baptized in Brooklyn, at Plymouth Church by Henry Ward Beecher in May 1963. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1863, by C. S. Lawrence, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York." Photographed by the...
Dates: May 1863