Trade card for Auguste Delâtre, publisher and printmaker

This object is housed in an album of British trade cards from the collections of Bella C. Landauer, Ambrose Heal, and others. The term “trade card” is of nineteenth-century origin and refers to a card that advertises the services of an individual or business. Eighteenth-century trade cards were often printed on thin sheets of paper and referred to as “tradesmen’s cards,” “tradesmen’s bills,” or “shopkeeper’s bills.” During the Victorian era, trade cards were often reinforced on pasteboard and closely resemble business cards today.

Born in Paris in 1822, Auguste Delatre was printer of etchings and aquatints. Around 1850 Delatre opened his own printing house which was quickly famous in France and abroad. Delatre moved to London in 1860 to found an engraving section in the South Kensington Museum, and he returned to London from 1871 to 1876 after his house and workshop were partially destroyed by Prussian bombardment and Commune.