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news of the Prince’s visit, as well as having “a feeling
of sacredness at the prospect... I was a little timid of
whether I should be able to rise to the occasion.” He
went on to photograph most members of the British
royal family, including Queen Victoria Princess Helena
and the Princess of Wales. Benjamin Constant’s late
portrait of Victoria, exhibited at the Royal Academy
after her death in 1901, was based on a Bassano pho-
tograph. In recognition of his royal work, Bassano
was appointed Photographer to Her Majesty on 24
November 1890.
Baden Pritchard’s visit to Bassano’s Old Bond Street
Studio sums up the enviable reputation he enjoyed by
the early 1880s:
A handsome suite of rooms on the fi rst fl oor of fashion-
able area, a clientele that only troubles you only in the
season, and sitters who do not object to pay well for the
attention they receive. Listen to this, good friends, who
believe that photographic portraiture is no longer worthily
compensated. (Baden Pritchard, Photographic Studios of
Europe, 81)
Bassano’s Old Bond Street studio was limited to
photographs by appointment, while his second estab-
lishment at Piccadilly was for more impromptu work.
Sittings usually lasted for thirty minutes, although more
time was allowed for full or three-quarter length por-
traits. Each visit cost two guineas, for which the sitter
received either twelve cabinet or twenty carte-de-visite
photographs.
The Old Bond Street studio had several dressing
rooms in which Ladies could prepare themselves for
their sitting, such as through changing into Court dress.
It was one of the fi rst studios to be electrifi ed and, on
days when Court levees were taking place, was often
open all night long. The principal studio was 26 ft in
length and contained a single background that measured
no less than 80 ft. It was mounted on perpendicular roll-
ers like a panorama. As it was unrolled, the scene could
be changed from outdoor to indoor, from the sublime
to the picturesque. Many of Bassano’s pictures use
elaborate props, inherited from the carte-de-visite, such
as strips of turf to create rural settings.
In his Old Bond Street, Bassano had a staff of three
artists constantly employed as retouchers. Many of the
studio’s negatives of aristocratic sitters show evidence of
skilful and extensive retouching, suggesting Bassano’s
success stemmed not simply from his artistic profi cien-
cy. Bassano also operated a large printing establishment
at Kilburn, where his photographs were taken after being
retouched and approved.
Bassano’s personal view of photography was that it
could not idealise but should be “nature apprehended
in its most intellectual phrase.” In a short article in The
Sketch in 1903, he put the success of his portraits down
to that fact that “I am one of the very few photogra-
phers who can show that they enjoyed artistic training
and association in early life.” Bassano believed that
this gave him particular advantages in his understand-
ing of composition and illumination, the two qualities
he claimed were most important for taking an artistic
picture. His cabinet portraits are usually half or quarter-
length portraits, and are notable for the skilful lighting
of the sitter. Bassano’s article in The Sketch claimed
that photographic portraiture at the present time was
lamentably defi cient in these qualities.
Although Bassano enjoyed a hugely successful
professional career, unlike some other photographers,
he does not seem to have been at the forefront of any
technical advances. His only recorded innovation was
the attempted introduction of a new size of portrait
format in the early 1880s called the Holbein, which
measured 7½ × 5 in.
Bassano was claimed to have made £60,000 from
his portraits studios. When asked what the secret of his
success was, he replied:
Secrets? Lord Bless you! I have none.. .I have met with
some success, but the only secret which has tended to
it has been that I have bought to bear upon my work
whatever art cultivation, inclination and circumstance
have fostered. (Baden Pritchard, Photographic Studios
of Europe, 82)
Bassano died in 1913 and is buried in Kensal Green
Cemetery in West London. The studio underwent ex-
tensive refurbishment in 1903, when it was renamed
Bassano Ltd, Royal Photographers. The company be-
came Bassano and VanDyck Studio in 1964, Bassano
and VanDyck Studio (Incorporating Elliot and Fry)
1965-76, and Industrial Photographic from 1977. The
National Portrait Gallery now owns more than 50,000
of the fi rm’s original glass negatives.
John Plunkett
See Also: Silvy, Camille; and Mayall, John Jabez
Edwin.Further Reading
Bassano, Alexander, “Art in Photographic Portraiture,” The Sketch
3 July 1901: 428.
Dimond, Frances, and Roger Taylor, Crown and Camera; the
Royal Family and photography 1842– 1910 , London: Viking,
1987.
Hillier, Bevis, Victorian Studio Photographs from the collections
of Studio Bassano and Elliot and Fry, London, London: Ash
and Grant, 1976.
Pepper, Terence, High Society, photographs 1897– 1914 , London:
National Portrait Gallery, 1998.
Pritchard, Baden H., The Photographic Studios of Europe, Lon-
don: Piper and Carter, 1882.
Sansom, Leslie “One Hundred Years of Portraiture,” British
Journal of Photography 14 May 1865: 418–23.