The Carte deVisite [CdV], a small photographic image mounted on a card, was patented by the Paris photographer André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri in 1854. The original intent was for it to be used as a visiting card, but the idea soon caught on: people traded cards with their portrait and put them in specially designed albums. Soon, no Paris salon or London drawing-room was complete without one of these CdV albums, and this novel photographic fad spread, like a contagion, all over the civilised world. The French CdV photographers realised the potential of Disdéri’s invention: why not issue CdVs of royal personages, famous artists and politicians, actors and actresses, churches and monuments, to challenge the collecting instinct of their customers? And would it not be très chic to make some cards of…
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Fortean Times (Digital) - 1 Issue, 445