[Studio Portrait: Seated Group portrait with Man in European Dress and Three Indigenous people]

1860s–70s

Not on view

The carte de visite, a format comprised of an approximately 2 x 4 inch photograph mounted to card stock, was perhaps the most ubiquitous of nineteenth-century photographs. The French studio portrait photographer André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri　first patented the carte in 1854. His innovation of exposing not just one but eight photographic images on the same glass plate negative enabled cartes to be made cheaply and reproduced on a mass scale. During the late 1850s and throughout the latter half of the century, these economical keepsakes depicting portraits of loved ones, celebrities, monarchs, and foreign types circulated en masse and spurred a veritable "cartomania." Collected in albums, traded among friends, and admired in drawing rooms, cartes put photography in the hands of virtually everyone, and thus offered a means of reflecting upon one’s own social standing in an ever-expanding world.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Title: [Studio Portrait: Seated Group portrait with Man in European Dress and Three Indigenous people]
Artist: Unknown
Date: 1860s–70s
Medium: Albumen silver print with applied color
Dimensions: Image: 8.6 x 5.3 cm Mount: 9.6 x 6.0 cm
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2017
Object Number: 2017.69.23
Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

By Unknown

In the same medium

Our Lady of Valvanera, Unknown Cuzco Artist, Peru, second half of 18th Century, Oil and gold on canvas, Peru (Cuzco) — Our Lady of Valvanera
Unknown
ca. 1770–80

[Carte-de-visite Album of Central Park Views], Stacy's Photographic Carte de Visite American, Albumen silver prints, gouache, varnish — [Carte-de-visite Album of Central Park Views]
Photography Studio Stacy's Photographic Carte de Visite
Ambrose Jackson
Publisher J. B. Lippincott Company
1860s

Calvary, Unknown artists, Guatemala, late 18th century, Polychrome wood, gilt silver, glass, hair, Guatemalan — Calvary
Unknown
ca. 1790

[Carte-de-visite Album of Collaged Portraits], Unknown, Albumen silver prints — [Carte-de-visite Album of Collaged Portraits]
Unknown
1850s–90s

Henri-Charles Maniglier, Unknown, Daguerreotype — Henri-Charles Maniglier
Unknown
ca. 1850

Research Resources

The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.

To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.

Feedback

We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please contact us using the form below. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.

Send feedback

Content Notice

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world, and our online collection reflects ongoing work conducted over the course of our more than 150-year history. You may encounter objects or images that may be inappropriate for some viewers or information that may be outdated.