# Carte-de-visite studio portraits

> Small albumen prints of a whole figure, mounted on a card the size of a visiting card and collected by the dozen in albums. The sitter stands or sits in a daylight studio beside a column, curtain, chair or draped table, sometimes before a painted backdrop, and holds still for a few seconds. Tones are warm brown to purple-brown, smooth and grainless, and the studio's name is printed on the back. Multi-lens cameras put eight or four images on one plate, so a portrait cost little and could be traded.

- Period: 1854–1900
- Where it began: Paris
- Kind: Early processes
- Also called: Carte de visite, CDV, Cartomania, Visiting-card portrait
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/carte-de-visite/

## How the look is made

- Show the whole figure: stand back far enough to fit head to feet, with a strip of floor and a prop beside the sitter.
- Build a small stage: a column or pilaster, a fringed curtain, a carved chair or a draped table with a book, a patterned carpet, a plain or painted backdrop.
- Pose for respectability: one hand on the prop, the other at the waist or holding a hat or glove, weight on one leg, still for seconds.
- Print warm and smooth: albumen paper from a glass negative, toned brown to purple-brown, with no grain.
- Make many: several poses on one plate, small prints mounted on stiff card with the studio's imprint, made to be exchanged and kept in albums.

## How it is lit

- Broad daylight from a skylight and side windows in a glass-roofed studio, softened with blinds.
- An even, pale backdrop lit by the same daylight, shadows soft and short around the feet and props.

### The rendered set-up

Broad daylight from a glass roof overhead and a tall side window, both softened with blinds, on a pale backdrop (the light of the studio, not the albumen print). Rendered in Blender Cycles on a synthetic clay figure or still life, with the lights exactly where the plan on the page puts them.

### A light plan from its choices (schematic)

- Key: the open sky, all around and above, soft.
- Reflector: a white card or reflector, about 55° to the camera’s right, soft.

## Camera settings

30–65 mm · f/3.5–f/8 · 2–15 s · ISO 0.5–2 (on 6x9), documented. Four-lens cameras with 3 in (76 mm) Petzval-type lenses on 6 × 9 cm frames (about 30 mm equivalent), or one quarter- or third-plate portrait tube; wet collodion at about ISO 1 under a skylight, a few seconds near full aperture. Stops and upper times are inferred.

## Directing people

Stand the sitter full length, body turned a little and weight on one leg, one hand on a column, chair back or draped table and the other in a pocket or holding a hat, cane or book; or seat them upright with hands in the lap or an elbow on the table. Faces are composed and unsmiling, eyes to the lens or just aside, held still for seconds.

## Styling

Best clothes for the studio: frock coat, waistcoat, watch chain and top hat, or a crinoline with a lace shawl and earrings; soldiers in uniform. The studio supplies the set: a plain or painted backdrop, a column, a fringed curtain, a carved chair, a draped table with a book, a patterned carpet.

## Before you shoot it

Cartes show real, mostly anonymous people and were collected as likenesses of family and of the famous. A generated carte must show an invented sitter, carry no imprint of a real studio, be labelled as AI-generated, and never be sold or shown as an antique card or as anyone's ancestor.

## Photographs

- André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, Napoléon Coste, 1859. Art Institute of Chicago, Purchased with funds provided by Helen Harvey Mills in honor of Katherine Bussard. Shown on the page: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/188833
- André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, Prince Jérôme, 1860–69. Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Helen Harvey Mills. Shown on the page: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/228224
- Sojourner Truth with S. C. Wright, Untitled ("I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance"), 1864–65. Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of W. Bruce and Delaney H. Lundberg. Shown on the page: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/238249
- William Notman, Mrs. S. H. C. Miner. Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Harold Allen. Shown on the page: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/31710

## Sources

- Carte de visite, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte_de_visite (Disdéri's 1854 patent and Dodero's 1851 use; print and card sizes; albumen print from a collodion negative; studio name on the back; eight-negative and four-lens Hermagis cameras; cartomania after Napoleon III, 1859; albums and celebrity cards; Mayall's royal portraits, 1860; columns, curtains, carpets and painted backdrops; decline from the 1870s)
- André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9-Adolphe-Eug%C3%A8ne_Disd%C3%A9ri (patent of 27 November 1854; multi-lens camera with a sliding plate holder)
- Cabinet card, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_card (cabinet card from the late 1860s; carte and cabinet card dominating portraiture for nearly three decades; retouching of negatives)
- Painted photography backdrops, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_photography_backdrops (painted backdrops standard in studios from about 1860 to 1920)
- Hand-colouring of photographs, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-colouring_of_photographs (aniline dyes on albumen prints from the 1860s)
- Napoléon Coste, Disdéri, Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/188833 (uncut sheet of eight poses from Disdéri's studio reference album; the format described)
- Untitled ('I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance'), Sojourner Truth with S. C. Wright, Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/238249 (cartes sold to support her campaigns)
- General George Armstrong Custer, Brady's National Photographic Portrait Galleries, Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/31707 (Brady's galleries producing cartes de visite)
- Brass Lens Panel With Four Lenses for Cartes de Visite, Science Museum Group (Kodak Collection): https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8206310/brass-lens-panel-with-four-lenses-for-cartes-de-visite (8.5 × 12.5 cm panel with four Petzval-type lenses of fixed aperture, about 3 in focal length)
- The Silver Sunbeam, John Towler (1864), chapter XXXV, The Card-Picture, CoOL edition: https://cool.culturalheritage.org/albumen/library/monographs/sunbeam/chap35.html (a single quarter or third tube is a complete outfit for cartes; each tube focused separately on the sitter; the shutter closed after the proper number of seconds; reflectors in dull light)
- The visitor's card, Swiss Camera Museum, Vevey: https://www.cameramuseum.ch/en/discover/permanent-exhibition/the-plate-era/the-visitors-card/ (Disdéri's several exposures of roughly 6 × 9 cm on one plate, with a multiple-lens body or a monocular body with a multiplier back)
- Collodion process, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collodion_process (wet collodion needed only a few seconds to expose an image in daylight; sensitive only to blue and ultraviolet; gelatin dry plates could be made much more sensitive)
- Wet Collodion and Ambrotype Process (Scully & Osterman), EdinPhoto: https://edinphoto.org.uk/1_early/1_early_photography_-_processes_-_wet_collodion_-_osterman.htm (collodion plates have a rating of about ASA 1, so long exposures are required)

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From Lumogeny (https://lumogeny.com/), a service of Van Riel Online Services. The shoot sheet for your own camera, lenses and lights is on the page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/carte-de-visite/#sheet