Appendix: Disdéri’s Client Register

McCauley, Elizabeth Anne

Save Cite Share

Free

Appendix: Disdéri’s Client Register

Elizabeth Anne McCauley

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

~Disdéri’s client register for the years between 1857 and 1865, now in a private collection, is an invaluable document that allows us to date his images based on their negative numbers and to estimate his studio’s volume of production. A commercially manufactured leather-bound volume measuring 35.8 × 23.3 centimeters and containing 394 leaves...

Author

Elizabeth Anne McCauley

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00004.013

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19529

Appendix: Disdéri’s Client Register

Disdéri’s client register for the years between 1857 and 1865, now in a private collection, is an invaluable document that allows us to date his images based on their negative numbers and to estimate his studio’s volume of production. A commercially manufactured leather-bound volume measuring 35.8 × 23.3 centimeters and containing 394 leaves organized into alphabetical sections, the register lists the surnames of clients, their negative numbers, and occasionally titles, Paris addresses, and identifying annotations (such as “Opéra” or “capitaine d’état majeure”). The register is also divided into twenty-six chronological units that range from one month to over a year and correspond to larger albums of uncut sheets of cartes arranged by negative number (album no. 17 is in the collection of André Jammes; the other twenty-five are scattered in private collections or have been dismantled). From the irregular chronological divisions marked off in the client register, it appears that the studio did not have fixed inventory or accounting periods.

The dated intervals that are noted in the register and their corresponding negative numbers are as follows:

PERIOD	BEGINNING NEGATIVE NUMBER
Sept. 1857–Nov. 1858	4002
Nov. 1858–April 1859	6325
April–July 1859	7985
July–Nov. 1859	10855
Nov. 1859–March 1860	12893
March–May 1860	15173
May–July 1860	17092
July–Sept. 1860	19116
Sept.–Nov. 1860	20787
Nov. 1860–Feb. 1861	22471
Feb. 1–April 11, 1861	24254
April 11–May 1861	25909
May–Aug. 1861	27500
Aug.–Oct. 12, 1861	29131
Oct. 12, 1861–Jan. 22, 1862	30609
Jan. 22–April 1862	32377
April–June 1862	34083
June–Aug. 1862	35525
Aug.–Oct. 1862	36945
Oct. 1862–Feb. 11, 1863	38401
Feb. 11–May 1863	40465
May–Aug. 1863	42317
Aug. 1863–Feb. 1864	44182
Feb.–July 14, 1864	46875
July 1864–Feb. 1865	49061
Feb. 1865–	51447

After February 1865, there are no dates recorded, although negative numbers as high as 68000 are listed.

The sequence of negative numbers in the register reveals that one number was assigned to each collodion-on-glass plate of eight shots and that the numbers assigned were not always consecutive. Therefore, fewer negatives were produced than is suggested by the negative numbers. Using this data as a base, however, we can see the relative increase in the number of clients during the summer of 1859, the summer of 1860, and the spring of 1861, with a steady decrease from 1861 through 1865 (see graphs).

The names included in the client register are too numerous to identify and analyze. In general, we can say that titles such as “Prince” or “Marquis” and particules abound from 1857 to 1860 and that the addresses of Paris hotels begin to accompany names listed after 1865 (probably during the 1867 international exhibition). Certain clients apparently sat several times for Disdéri, as indicated by the string of negative numbers after their names. For example, the Duke and Duchess of Alba sat for 13 plates (negative nos. 11478, 11479, 11480, 12460, 12488, 12489, 12490, 12534, 12686, 12974, 12975, 12987, 12988—all during 1859–60); their children returned to the studio for six (negative nos. 21529, 21530, 21531, 21801, 21802, and 21803). The typical middle-class client, however, only sat once.

Disdéri Studio—Average Monthly Production (based on negative numbers, client registers)

Disdéri Studio—Average Annual Production (based on negative numbers, client registers)

Next chapter

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

Base text size -

Chapter images ()