813813
LAFAYETTE, JAMES
Further Reading
Lacan, Ernest, Esquisses Photographiques, Paris: Grassart, 1856;
second edition, Paris: J.M. Place, 1987.
Lacan, Ernest (ed.), La Lumière, Marseille: Jeanne Laffi tte,
1995.
Rouillé, André, La photographie en France, Textes & Contro-
verses: une anthologie 1816–1871 [Photography in France,
Texts and Controversies: an anthology, 1816–1871], Paris,
Macula, 1989.
Hermange, Emmanuel, “‘La Lumière’ et l’invention de la cri-
tique photographique (1851–1860)” [“La Lumière” and the
invention of photography criticism (1851–1860)], Etudes
Photographiques, 1, 1996, 89–108.
LAFAYETTE, JAMES (JAMES STACK
LAUDER) (1853–1923)
James Stack Lauder (1853–1923), photographer, un-
der the name James Lafayette, was born in Dublin on
22 January 1853, the eldest son in the family of six
sons and four daughters of Edmund Stanley Lauder
(1824–1891), photographer, and his wife Sarah Stack
(1828–1913). Edmund was a pioneering and successful
photographer who had opened a daguerreotype studio
in Dublin in 1853.
In 1880 James Stack Lauder founded his own pho-
tography studio, using for the fi rst time the professional
name of James Lafayette “late of Paris” and naming his
studio variously “Jacques Lafayette,” “J. Lafayette,” and
“Lafayette” as an indication of his artistic training in
the City of Lights. He was joined in the new business
by his three brothers, all of whom were experienced
photographers who had worked in their father’s studio.
In 1884 he was elected member of the Photographic
Society of Great Britain, and thereafter his entries in
the multitudinous photographic competitions around
Britain and in Europe started winning him medals for
“exceptionally fi ne portraits.”
By 1885, the studio’s output was praised in print by
the Photographic Society of Great Britain as “very beau-
tiful, being distinguished for delicacy of treatment...”
and Lafayette’s early experiments with hand-colouring
produced images that were described as “permanent
carbon photographs painted in water-colour on porce-
lain,” and the new specialist photographic press waxed
generally lyrical over the fi ne quality of “Monsieur
Lafayette’s” portraiture. His work was noted to be of the
highest technical excellence. His poses were graceful
and good, the fl esh was rendered as fl esh and the folds
of the drapery were rich and effective in the “Rembrandt
style.” As well as producing a number of faux rustic and
cloying images of mother and child in the high Victorian
style, Lafayette registered many idylls for copyright
at Stationers’ Hall. A typical image of this genre, half
photograph, half line drawing, made as late as June 1894
has elements of highly sanitised fully-clothed Victorian
eroticism depicting, in Lauder’s own words, a “group
of two fi gures, girl on ladder gathering apple blossom,
man under tree receiving same in his hat, called ‘Blos-
soming Hopes.’”
During the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893,
held in Chicago, the foremost German professor of pho-
tography, H.W. Vogel, described a portrait of Lafayette’s
work as the “grandest photographs... He shows great
skill in fi nely arranged single pictures and groups. A
suspended angel, almost life-size and taken from life,
is remarkable.” This fl oating angel could be considered
a rudimentary beginning of special effects photography
and it was not until decades later that an employee di-
vulged that the image had been made by photographing
the subject lying down on a large sheet of glass over a
painted background, so adjusted and so illuminated as
to give the proper idea of perspective and the draperies
having been arranged on the surface of the glass to give
the impression of fl ight.
In the studio’s commercial portraits, Lafayette fol-
lowed the recipe well-tested from the early days of the
daguerreotype when having an image made of oneself
suddenly became affordable and no longer the preserve
of active patrons of painters. As the subjects of portraits
became democratised, the commercial photographer
faced the situation of having to make fl attering pho-
tographs of people who had no experience of sitting
for a portrait and Lafayette’s art of posing and skill in
cropping the prints from his 12" × 15" glass negatives
engendered both commercial success and, on 6 March
1887, the grant of a Royal Warrant as “Photographer to
Her Majesty at Dublin.”
The Royal Warrant, which was subsequently renewed
by King Edward VII and George V, conferred enormous
prestige, and the style and title of “Photographer Royal”
on the studio advertising and promotional literature,
proved extremely useful in attracting new clients. The
business expanded rapidly in the 1890s. Studios were
established in Glasgow (1890), Manchester (1892), and
with the expected business bulge in Jubilee year (1897)
a branch was opened on London’s fashionable Bond
Street. Subsequently another studio was established in
Belfast (1900). In 1898 all the Lauder family businesses
were incorporated and shares in the newly established
Lafayette Ltd. were fl oated on the Stock Exchange.
Lafayette’s commercial success coincided with
developments in the half-tone printing process, which
resulted in the proliferation of illustrated weekly
magazines. The fi rm was one of the fi rst to recognize
the opportunities offered by syndicating photographs
and portraits of his favourite subjects—“some of the
great ladies of the land”—were published in such great
numbers as full page covers in The Queen, The Tatler,
and Chic, inter alia, that The Lady’s Realm in 1900
stated outright: “It is well-nigh impossible to open any