Graphics Atlas: Guided Tour

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from the group: Albumen

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Pre-photographic

Intaglio

Planographic

Relief

Photomechanical

Collotype

Letterpress

Offset Lithography

Offset Lithograph (Halftone Postcard)

Photogravure

Rotogravure

Woodburytype

Photographic

Albumen

Ambrotype

Bromoil

Bromoil

Bromoil Transfer

Carbon

Carbro

Chromogenic

Collodion POP

Cyanotype

Daguerreotype

Direct Carbon (Fresson)

Dye Imbibition

Gelatin Dry Plate

Gelatin POP

Gum Dichromate

Instant (Diffusion Transfer)

Instant (Dye Diffusion Transfer)

Instant (Internal Dye Diffusion Transfer)

Matte Collodion

Platinum

Salted Paper

Screen Plate

Silver Dye Bleach

Silver Gelatin DOP

Tintype

Wet Plate Collodion

Digital

Electrophotography

Inkjet

Thermal

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Notes on this view:

Charles Sherwood Stratton, stage name General Tom Thumb, was one of the most popular celebrities in the nineteenth century. He achieved immense fame performing around the world for P.T. Barnum who taught him to sing, dance and do impersonations when Stratton was about four years old. Stratton, born in 1838, stopped growing at a normal rate when he was eighteen months old. At the time of his death in 1883, he was a little over 3 feet tall.

With the introduction of the carte de visite in the 1860s, the production and commercialization of celebrity portraits became a profitable business. Publishers issued trade lists and catalogues of their image holdings depicting famous people, such as politicians, religious leaders, performers, and royalty, which would be printed as carte de visites and purchased by consumers. To build their image holdings, publishers would employ photographers, purchase negatives, or pirate marketable images. Alternatively, a photographer entered into an agreement with a sitter in which the sitter was paid a flat fee and the photographer and publisher sold the images. These objects were highly collectable and often incorporated into carte de visite albums.