1191
and the desire for greater realism. The amount of light
used by photographic studios, for example, consider-
ably deepened any wrinkles and accentuated the signs
of age: retouching was argued to be a means of making
a photograph into a better likeness.
The specialist photographic journals often contained
advice on how to manipulate negatives, and there were
numerous instruction manuals published. These suggest
that, at its best, retouching was a complex practice that
required a high degree of artistic skill and an intimate
knowledge of facial physiognomy. All too easily, howev-
er, zealous retouching could give sitters’ faces a waxdoll
or billiard ball appearance. Many articles on retouching,
although not against the practise per se, were concerned
that too much unskilled work would destroy popular be-
lief in photographic realism. As one manual put it, “The
clever pupil of the celebrated Professor Scratchpaw took
in other pupils until the scratchpaw aborigines fl ooded
the market with re or misre-presentations of somebody
or other, and the result was that the real retoucher has
always been at a premium” (Hubert, 7–8).
Retouching was carried out using a variety of soft
lead pencils upon a glass negative coated with a solu-
tion that allowed the pencil to bite. Elaborate profes-
sional equipment, including desks with inbuilt lights
and refl ectors, aided the task. Most manuals recom-
mended the use of lines to accomplish any desired
alterations, much in the way a steel or wood engraver
would work. Retouching varied from the carefully
precise work to the brutally extensive. As The Art of
Retouching put it:
Do not on any account forget to touch ladies’ waists in
a specially hearty matter, if you want to keep on good
terms with them. You are always safe in cutting off an
inch on each side, and in some cases, where corpulence
is rather conspicuous, two or more inches will never be
missed. (Hubert 49)Instruction manuals contained far more information,
however, than simply the removal of waistlines and
double chins. They included details of how to soften
the lines around the temples; how to remodel the
furrows around and under the eyes where the studio
light would cause dark shadows; and how to thicken
and darken hair through careful manipulation. Necks,
cheeks, jowls, all were subject to the retoucher’s
pencil. Carried out with skill and subtlety, retouching
could add gravitas to a sitter’s appearance as well as
remove years.
John Plunkett
See also: Rigby, Lady Elizabeth Eastlake;
Photographic Exchange Club and Photographic
Society Club, London; Cartes-de-Visite; and
Photographic News (1858-1908).
Further Reading
Barrett, Redmond, “Methods of Retouching,” British Journal
of Photography 34 (1887): 71–72, 116–118, 150–151,
218–219.
Butt, Drinkwater, Practical Retouching, London: Iliffe and
Sons, 1901.
Burrows and Colton, The Art of Retouching, London: Mann &
Co., 1876.
Eastlake, Elizabeth, “Photography,” Quarterly Review 101, June
1857–Sept. 1857, 442–468.
“Exhibition of Art Treasures at Manchester,” Liverpool and
Manchester Photographic Journal 1857: 126.
Hubert, J., The Art of Retouching, London: Hazell, Watson and
Viney, 1891.
“The new Picture Galleries,” Photographic Journal 15 February
1862: 380–381.
“Retouching and Photographic Truth,” Photographic News 16,
19 January 1872: 25.
Young, Andrew, The ABC of Retouching, London: Memorial
Hall, 1895.REUTLINGER, CHARLES (1816–1881)
French photographer
Charles Reutlinger was founder of the highly success-
ful eponymous Paris photographic establishment, in
business from 1850 to 1937, which was known for its
portraits, theatrical cartes de visite and cabinet cards,
as well as erotica and, later, fashion and proto-surrealist
photographs.
By the time Reutlinger was 18, he was already known
to be practicing the art of silhouette portraiture, which
his aunt, Madame la Conseiller Weiss, had been doing
professionally since around 1820 in Karslrhue. He
moved to Stuttgart around 1835, where he met Georg
Friedrich Brandseph, an established silhouette artist,
who was among the early adapters to the burgeoning
fi eld of daguerreotype portraiture. It may have been
Brandseph who interested Reutlinger in the new art, but
it is undoubtedly during that time that Reutlinger came
to know about the work of Daguerre and Niepce, and
he established his own photographic studio in Stuttgart
at 8 Fürtbachstrasse by 1849.
Reutlinger certainly arrived in Paris with some
amount of portrait photography business and techni-
cal acumen already, since, by 1851, his photographic
advertisement was running in the publication La Lu-
mière, offering, as well, to instruct others in the art of
“daguerreotype on paper.”
From the early 1850s, Reutlinger was a prolifi c pro-
ducer of carte de visite portraits of the notable fi gures
in cosmopolitan Paris, including politicians and royalty,
musical celebrities, and theatrical stars. Among the
portraits in the collection of the Bibliothèque Natio-
nale are the Le Prince Napoléon-Bonaparte (ca. 1853)
and Édouard Manet (1875). His atelier was decorated