“A REVOLUTION IN PICTURES”: SCARCE VICTORIAN CARTE DE VISTE ALBUM, WITH 56 ALBUMEN PRINTS OF ROYALTY, DISRAELI, DICKENS AND OTHERS

(ROYALTY) (DISDÉRI, André and MAYALL, J.E. et al.). Victorian Photograph Album. (London, circa 1860). Oblong quarto, contemporary full brown morocco, ornamental brass plates and catch (without clasp), watered silk endpapers, all edges gilt.

Scarce Victorian carte de viste album with 56 mounted albumen prints of British Royalty and major political and literary figures as taken by leading photographers, this superb album from the collection of musician Graham Nash, with his signed bookplate tipped in.

This splendid album of vintage albumen prints highlights “a revolution in pictures” as the Victorian age embraced the elegance of the “carte de visite, a small photograph, most commonly a portrait, mounted on a card measuring approximately 2-1/2 by 4 inches… also known as the card or album photograph” (Darrah, 4). This particular volume is an especially rich collection of what was acclaimed in its time as “the social currency, the sentimental ‘green-backs’ of civilization” (Taft, 143). Displayed within are portraits of the British royal family, including King Edward VII when Prince of Wales (Mayall, 1859) and Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria (Mayall, 1861). Also featured are vintage prints of Gladstone (Mayall, 1861) and Disraeli (Mayall, 1861), Baron Rothschild (photographer unstated), Garibaldi (London Stereoscopic, 1860), Dickens (Watkins, 1861), Thackeray (Caldesi Blanford, 1860) and Tennyson (Cundall, 1861), along with members of Parliament and many others. Especially significant herein is the work of André Disdéri, who first patented and popularized the carte de visite format, along with that of Court Photographer John Mayall, Gilvy, Deron, Poulton, McKilbourn, Mayer & Pierson, Hering, and John & Charles Watkins. With 56 cartes de visite displayed on 14 leaves of heavy stock, each displaying two mounted albumen prints on each side, housed in framed pockets. Two prints hand-colored; several prints with facsimile signatures on the recto. From the photography collection of musician Graham Nash, with his tipped-in signed bookplate.

Plates quite fresh and bright, only light scattered foxing, faint marginal spotting and occasional tiny closed tears at edges of paper frames. An extremely good collection with a notable association.