cartes-de-visite (card photographs)

Scope Note: 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.