One of the first extensions or applications of Photography as a medium was in the popular craze for having and using photographic cartes de visite. The Carte de Visite had been patented by Andre Disderi in 1854 (he even developed a multi-lens camera to take several carte photographs on the same glass negative). Cartes became wildly popular in the 1860s and 1870s, were then supplemented by the Cabinet Card – a larger postcard-size visiting card specifically designed to propped-up on the mantelpiece alongside invitations and greetings cards. The original cartes were approximately 2”x3”, albumen prints mounted on stiff card, and nearly everyone in the middle and upper classes had one, including Victoria and Albert, and Napolean III.
It was considered almost de rigour to carry photographic cartes de visite – a bit like carrying an iPad or Kindle nowadays. And the middle classes were not slow to realise the ‘promotional’ advantages of the cartes in their social networking. Artists and writers used cartes too, and when the royal family began using them in the 1860s, the scene was set for a boom decade. By 1870, the fad for cartes (known as ‘cardomania’) was such that Queen Victoria herself had over 100 albums of cartes. The popularity of cartes de visite led to a fashion for albums of photographs….And it was these cartes and albums that introduced Photography into the Celebrity equation – suddenly everyone knew what everyone of note looked like. Alfred Tennyson was to find this especially annoying, complaining to Julia that
Hotels charged him double now that they recognised him. But still Tennyson had his own cartes, and his ambivalent love-hate attitude to celebrity was to colour his relationship with Julia, though it looks like she was ‘art directing’ and commissioning photographs of Alfred and his family even before she had her own camera.
The Julia Secession 