Carte-de-visites: the development of the royal image

9 February 2018

In conjunction with the Modern Times episode in Andrew Graham-Dixon's Art, Passion & Power, Sophie Gordon, Head of Photographs at the Royal Collection Trust, introduces us to the first photographic portraits widely available to the public.

Left image - Queen Victoria and Princess Beatrice | Photograph of Queen Victoria seated, slightly to right, with Princess Beatrice seated on her lap | Read more at Royal Collection Trust's website

Right image - Princess Helena (1846-1923) | Photograph of a full length portrait of Princess Helena (1846-1923) | Read more at Royal Collection Trust's website

Although the first photograph of a member of the British royal family was taken as early as 1842, it was not until 1860 that the first photographic portraits of the royals were published and widely available to the public.

By this time, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had been photographed on many occasions and they would have seen how photographs could be manipulated to create a particular image, be it of a reigning monarch or of a wife and dutiful spouse.

Those first photographs that were released to the public in 1860 were presented in a particular format – the carte-de-visite – when a small photograph was pasted onto a card backing. Patented in 1854 by French photographer Alphonse Disdéri, within a few years the carte-de-visite had become popular across Europe as a way of creating relatively cheap family portraits.

At the same time, cartes of famous people, including royalty, politicians, writers, musicians and actors, were made available for sale through print-sellers. A collecting craze quickly developed, known as cartomania, which was fully embraced by Queen Victoria. Public demand for images of the British royal family also grew stronger.

In 1860, Queen Victoria gave photographer John Mayall (1813-1901) her permission to publish a set of portraits he had taken of her and other members of the royal family. This set of images was extremely popular, and another set of Mayall's portraits was released in 1861. Instead of presenting the queen as sovereign, the photographs show the queen dressed quite modestly, and she is also portrayed as a wife and a mother.

Left image - Prince Albert, Prince Consort (1819-61) | Photograph of Prince Albert, Prince Consort in a full-length portrait | Read more at Royal Collection Trust's website

Right image - Queen Alexandra when Princess of Wales (1844-1925) with her daughter Princess Louise (1867-1931) | An informal photograph of Queen Alexandra (1844-1925) when Princess of Wales, carrying her daughter Princess Louise (1867-1931) on her back | Read more at Royal Collection Trust's website

Cartes-de-visite of the queen sold in their tens of thousands, with events such as the death of Prince Albert in December 1861 triggering large sales of portraits.

It was later claimed though that the best-selling photograph of this period was the extremely unusual portrait, from 1867, of the Princess of Wales giving her daughter Princess Louise a piggy-back.

Issued as a carte-de-visite, it was designed to show the public that the young, modern Princess was well and full of life, following an illness and the birth of her child. The carte-de-visite thus gave the royal family a way to communicate directly with the British public.