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elaborately, with the furnishings and decor serving
as settings and props in the portraits. The cartes were
stamped “Ch. Reutlinger” on the back, with a coat of
arms and address, and sometimes “garantie d’après
nature.”
Portrait photography was an ideal symbiotic partner
with the emerging cult of celebrity, especially the fas-
cination with theatrical stars. Both were dependent on
artifi ce and capitalized on fantasy, and photographers
and performers were glad to cooperate to increase their
profi ts.
Reutlinger’s early style was somewhat distinctively
archaic, in that it drew upon the formal conventions of
the silhouette portraits by preferring to vignette bust
portraits, rather than the full length portraits preferred
by Disderi and other contemporaries.
The medium for Reutlinger’s commercial produc-
tion, the carte de visite, was a photographic process
patented in Paris by André Disderi in 1854. They were
albumen prints printed onto cards of standard sizes (4½
× 2½ in.), which had engraved labels on the back with
the company’s name, address and coat of arms. In the
1860s, a larger format (6¾ × 4½ in.) was introduced,
the cabinet card, which replaced the bulk of Reutlinger’s
production for the remainder of the century, until sup-
planted by less expensive postcards.
Reutlinger became a member of the Société fran-
çaise de photographie in 1862, and his more beaux arts
photographic works were included in their exhibitions
throughout the 1860s and 1870s. The works shown
were predominantly artistic portraits and studies “after
nature,” in keeping with the academic aspirations of that
organization. In the 1874 exhibition Reutlinger exhibited
six examples of what were labeled “aristotypes (silver
gelatin prints),” and in 1876, a series of carbon prints.
Meanwhile, the increasing commercial demand for
celebrity portraits was a boon to Reutlinger, who had,
by 1873, a catalog of over 1,300 personalities avail-
able for sale. Their names, listed alphabetically and by
genre or profession, were predominantly those of public
fi gures and theatre stars, but also included members of
the clergy (Catholic, Jewish and Protestant), visiting
dignitaries, and great artists.
Reutlinger was by no means alone in capitalizing on
the demand for theatrical stars, as his colleagues Nadar,
Etienne Carjat, and others were highly successful in that
regard. The great democratization of these images, avail-
able for a small price, allowed the public to select and
repeatedly examine the likenesses of the famous. These,
they mounted into albums, becoming, in effect, curators
of their gallery of favorite portraits. Émile Zola’s novel
La Curée gives an indication of the entertainment value
these provided, provoking passionate discussions by the
collectors about the various merits and depictions of the
personalities in their personal albums.
Ten albumen prints of his theatrical portraits were
included in a 1875 publication by the Palais Royal-
based fi rm Tresse titled Foyers et Coulisses: Histoire
Anecdotique des Théatres de Paris. Many magazines
also patronized Reutlinger and the other Paris fi rms for
iconic images of everyone from statesmen to demi-mon-
daines, with a decided preference for the latter.
The costumed actresses, by far the most popular of
the images produced in that era, naturally evolved into
more and more erotic imagery, with an emphasis on
actresses in the body stockings that were the theatri-
cal facsimiles for nudity. This, in turn, gave way to
Reutlinger photographing nudes and beauties in their
underclothes, and making them available as a series
called “des petites femmes de Paris.” The fact that this
was a thriving industry initially particular to Paris dur-
ing the period is evident by the fact that erotic pictures
continued to be referred to as “French postcards” well
into the 20th century.
It is not clear how many of these nudes were made
by Charles and how many were by his younger brother,
Émile, who succeeded him as director of the business
in 1880. It is certainly known that the catalog of exist-
ing images continued to be marketed and added to in
Émile’s era, and that Charles Reutlinger passed away
in Paris in 1881.
The Reutlinger fi rm continued well into the twenti-
eth century under a succession of family members, but
the cartes continued to be stamped “Ch. Reutlinger”
until 1895, when the stylized signature of Léopold,
the son of Émile, became the label. Today, the bulk of
the Reutlinger archives are housed in the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France in Paris.
Reutlinger’s legacy was as a pioneer in the com-
mercial business of photography and creating a niche
business in the great photographic metropolis that was
Paris in the 30 years he was active there, recognizing and
cultivating the uncharted territory of celebrity mania,
then in its formative years.
Deirdre DonohueBiography
Reutlinger was born 26 February 1816 in Karlsruhe as
Carl Reutlinger, the eldest of four siblings. His brother
Émile, who would succeed him as head of the fi rm, was
born in 1825. Their father Léopold was a wine whole-
saler and former military offi cer.
In 1850, upon moving to Paris, he changed his fi rst
name to Charles, and began to work in his home at 33
boulevard Saint-Martin (in a building which no longer
exists). Charles Reutlinger, photographic artist, appears
in the Bottin Paris business directory of 1853 at 112
rue de Richlieu on the corner of boulevard Montmarte.
That is the address of the fi rm until 1864, when the