M. Forbes Campbell

The introduction of the carte-de-visite portrait, promoted and popularized by the French photographer Disdéri beginning in the mid-1850s, brought photography to the middle class and celebrity to many of nobler rank. Using a camera fitted with four lenses and a sliding plate holder, a photographer could expose eight portraits on a single glass-plate negative. Depending upon the client's desires, the photographer could open all four lenses at once to make four images of two poses on the negative, open them two at a time as in this example, or open each sequentially to obtain eight distinct poses. Once the negative was developed, all eight portraits could be printed in a single operation and then trimmed and glued to visiting-card size mounts. This method of mass production made photographic portraits both abundant and affordable.