C
233
CABINET CARDS
The cabinet format was designed to recreate the success
of carte de visite photographs, which were produced in
the millions worldwide beginning around 1859. In the
United States, business at photography galleries slowed
after the Civil War, and the trade began looking for a new
product. The answer came from Britain, where a similar
business slowdown led F. R. Window of the London
studio Window & Bridge to suggest the cabinet format in
- In England, The Photographic News championed
the new format; in the United States, The Philadelphia
Photographer campaigned for its adoption. Manufactur-
ers also benefi ted from the new format, selling lenses,
printing frames, mounts and albums designed for cabinet
cards. Like the carte de visite before it, the cabinet card
format became an international standard; cards produced
in Bombay or Yokohama would fi t albums in the parlors
of Edinburgh or Chicago. The format remained popular
into the early years of the 20th century.
Cabinet cards are generally albumen print photo-
graphs from wet-plate collodion negatives, mounted on
cards measuring 4.25 × 6.5 inches. The size of the print
is 4 × 5.5 inches, allowing for a border all around and
an extra deep border in the lower portion of the card.
This extra-deep portion is intended to allow the card to
be grasped and inserted into an album without handling
the photographic print. Later cabinet cards—those made
in the late 1890s and early in the 20th century—are
often silver prints made from dry-plate negatives, but
it is their size and type of mounting that makes them
cabinet cards. A brisk trade was done in albums for this
format, ranging from simple velvet-covered styles to
elaborate leather-bound versions with miniature music
boxes that played when the cover was opened. Some
albums featured chromolithographs decorating their
pages; rarer examples, often produced in Japan, have
pages hand-decorated in ink and watercolor.
Because each cabinet card offered nearly four times
the image area of a carte de visite, photographers sud-
denly had many more compositional options. Cartes
were usually limited to a few simple poses—full-length
standing fi gure by a column, vignetted bust portrait, or
seated fi gure beside a table. Cabinet cards offered more
opportunities to show groups or to introduce elaborate
backdrops and props. As with the earlier format, pho-
tographers sold cabinet cards of celebrities and royalty,
which people would collect in albums along with their
family portraits. Some of the most creative work in
the cabinet format can be seen in the theatrical images
produced by leading studios in New York, London,
and Paris.
Signifi cant photographers utilizing the cabinet format
included Nadar, Charles Reutlinger, Napoleon Sarony,
W. & D. Downey, Elliott & Fry, Charles D. Fredricks and
Mathew Brady. Julia Margaret Cameron’s magnifi cent
large compositions were rephotographed and issued in
the much-smaller cabinet format. Sarony specialized
in photographing theatrical people and produced many
striking images. Often these were simple and direct,
such as his portraits of Ellen Terry and Oscar Wilde.
But Sarony was justly famed for his use of props and
backdrops, capable of turning his New York studio into
the Egyptian desert or the icy North Pole. The studio
featured a mummy, ancient armor, stuffed birds and a
Russian sleigh. Sarony’s eye for potentially picturesque
props made his sitting-room a “dumping ground for the
dealers in unsalable idols, tattered tapestry, and indigent
crocodiles.”
The cabinet format was also used for purposes other
than portraiture. In France, Eugene Appert issued a se-
ries of photomontages intended for political purposes
during the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Paris
(1871). City views and pictures of prosperous merchants
in front of their stores were popular. The works of lead-