Acknowledgments

McCauley, Elizabeth Anne

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Acknowledgments

Elizabeth Anne McCauley

A. A. E. Disdéri and the Carte de Visite Portrait Photograph

~When I went to Paris in 1975 to begin an investigation of theories of gesture and facial expression and their influence on Second Empire painting, I had little idea that I would end up producing a study of early portrait photography. In my search for nineteenth-century discussions of physiognomic theory, I discovered photographic manuals and periodicals that were...

Author

Elizabeth Anne McCauley

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00004.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19519

Acknowledgments

When I went to Paris in 1975 to begin an investigation of theories of gesture and facial expression and their influence on Second Empire painting, I had little idea that I would end up producing a study of early portrait photography. In my search for nineteenth-century discussions of physiognomic theory, I discovered photographic manuals and periodicals that were grappling with the problem of achieving satisfactory likenesses in portraits and were reviving Lavater’s comments on character reading. My confrontation with the portrait photographs themselves soon forced the physiognomic issue into the background, so that when Bernard Marbot, curator of nineteenth-century photographs at the Bibliothèque Nationale, suggested that Disdéri deserved attention, I found the character around whom my discussion of popular portraiture evolved.

Unraveling the threads of Disdéri’s life and understanding the carte de visite as a product exactly suited to its historical moment necessarily involved the assistance and encouragement of numerous scholars, archivists, and friends. Pierre Touveneraud of the Assumptionist Archives in Rome, Robert Deband, director of the Archives du Gard, P. Gistucci, archivist for the Department of Alpes-Maritimes, Mme Mélandri of the Archives of the city of Nice, and Jean Foucher, archivist for the city of Brest, facilitated the reconstruction of Disdéri’s career.

Beaumont Newhall, Gérard Lévy, André Jammes, Hughes Texier, M. and Mme Henri Du Passage, and Gisèle Freund generously shared their expertise and Disdéri material. Mme Christine Roget at the Société française de photographie, Mark Haworth-Booth at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Francis Diamond at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, Robert Sobieszek at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Weston Naef at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Roy Flukinger at the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, also allowed me to consult their collections. I have also benefited from discussions about Second Empire photography and history with Werner Szambien, François Béguin, Andrew Lincoln, Nick Papayanis, André Rouillé, Jean Sagne, Françoise Heilbrun, Philippe Néagu, Janet Buerger, and Molly Nesbit. A special thanks should be given to Bernard Marbot, who has good-naturedly endured my persistent questions and demands for uncatalogued materials during the past ten years.

Anne Hanson, Don Crafton, Alan Trachtenberg, and Kirk Varnedoe read the manuscript at various stages in its evolution and made invaluable suggestions for its improvement. Judy Metro and Becky Saletan of the Yale Press assisted in the final editing process.

My European research was funded in part by grants from the Northeast Common Pool Trust for the Arts, Princeton, New Jersey, and by the Harriet Shaw Fellowship awarded by Wellesley College. A grant from the University Research Institute, The University of Texas at Austin, helped cover the cost of photographs.

For their endless encouragement, acute insights, and contagious enthusiasm about the nineteenth century, I would like especially to thank my two mentors—Eugenia Janis, who showed me the way, and Robert Herbert, who kept me on the path.

And, finally, I would like to dedicate this work to my father, Edward J. McCauley, who forced a Rolleiflex on me when I was ten and entertained me after school in the darkroom by mysteriously calling forth images from the floating silver paper.

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BOOKA. A. E. Disdéri and the Carte de Visite Portrait Photograph

Elizabeth Anne McCauley

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00004

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19516

In 1854 the young aspiring photographer A. A. E. Disdéri patented the carte de viste, a relatively inexpensive photograph the size of a traditional calling card. This invention marked the beginning of popular photography, the first step in the transformation of the medium from a unique recording of the world on a daguerrian plate into a commonplace, disposable item taken for granted by its urban clientele.

In this carefully documented book, Elizabeth Anne McCauley traces Disdéri’s successes and failures, using his career as the framework against which to describe the history and significance of his most successful product. The carte becomes a unique means for McCauley to examine the social and cultural life of the mid-19th-century French middle class—their morals and manners, fashions and obsessions. McCauley finds that the cartes became a great equalizer, allowing bourgeois Parisians to examine and, in effect, bring into their living rooms the famous politicians, actors, dance-hall girls, and writers in the photographs. The carte also gave the bourgeoisie the opportunity to dress in their Sunday best and record their own lineage, just as the well‑to-do had done for centuries in painted portraits.

McCauley shows that the proliferation of the carte had a marked effect not only on society but also on portrait painting, especially on the styles and compositions of young artists such as Manet, Degas, Monet, and Renoir. Her multifaceted study thus provides a new perspective on art history, French culture, and photography.

*This book is available exclusively on the A&AePortal.*

Author

Elizabeth Anne McCauley

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date September 1985 (out of print)

Print ISBN 9780300031690

EISBN 9780300253337

Illustrations 204

Print Status out of print

Publisher (out of print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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