910
full advantage of the company’s prestige and prowess to
further her reputation as a femme fatale and developed
a collaborative artistic relationship with Louis Pierson,
who photographed her as herself as well as in the guise
of the Queen of Hearts, the Hermit of Passy, and the
Queen of Etruria among other fi ctional and historical
characters who appealed to the Countess’s sense of
drama and often served a narrative purpose in her life.
For example, after an argument with her estranged
husband, the Countess sent him a Pierson photograph
of herself masquerading as “Vengeance,” carrying a
dagger in her hand.
Many of Pierson’s photographs of the Countess
were hand painted, a specialty that the company fi rst
began to widely advertise with an exhibition at the
1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris and continued to
capitalize on with a successful showing of photographs
of the Countess at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, also
held in Paris. In addition, the Countess took full advan-
tage of the studio technology employed by Mayer and
Pierson, including illusionistic backdrops that slid back
and forth on rails, lighting controlled by mobile screens
activated by springs and a plethora of architectural and
decorative props.
Mayer and Pierson’s success with the mass produc-
tion of celebrity cartes-de-visite in the late 1850s and
early 1860s, aided by the use of a special camera that
allowed eight separate portraits to be taken on one
negative, led to a highly publicized lawsuit against
commercial photographers Thiebault, Betbéder and
Schwabbé in 1862 that in the end won protection for
photographs under French copyright laws by legally
defi ning photography as an art form. In two separate
instances, Mayer and Pierson cartes-de-visite had been
copied and sold under the name of a different com-
mercial company: Thiebault and Betbéder retouched a
Mayer and Pierson photograph of the Italian minister
Cavour and marketed it as their own and Schwabbé
countertyped a carte-de-visite of Lord Palmerston and
sold it as his own work. Until Mayer and Pierson fi led
their lawsuit, photographs were not protected under
copyright law because they were not defi ned as a fi ne art
like painting was. Thus when Mayer and Pierson won
their lawsuit on appeal, they also claimed a victory for
the defi nition of photography as a fi ne art rather than a
product of science of technology.
Kimberly Rhodes
See also: Cartes-de-Visite; Braun, Adolphe; and
Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon).
Further Reading
Apraxine, Pierre, and Xavier Demange, “La Divine Comtesse”:
Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione, New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2000.
Freund, Giselle, Photography and Society, Boston: David Go-
dine, 1983.
McCauley, Elizabeth Anne, Industrial Madness: Commercial
Photography in Paris, 1848–1871, New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 1994.
The Second Empire 1852–1870: Art in France under Napoleon
III, Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1978.
Solomon-Godeau, Abigail, “The Legs of the Countess,” October
39 (Winter 1986), 65–108.
Tyl, Pierre, “Mayer et Pierson (1),” Prestige de la photographie
6 (1979), 5–30.
——, “Mayer et Pierson (2),” Prestige de la photographie 7
(1979), 36–63.MAYLAND, WILLIAM (1821–1907)
English photographer
Born in Blackheath, Lewisham, November 21, 1821,
Mayland started his photographic career in Cambridge
in the 1860s. In 1869 he moved to London to join
Thomas Richard Williams (1824 –1871) at his studio
236 Regent Street, Westminster, and on the latter’s death
took sole control, although the studio name was not
formally changed to Williams & Mayland until 1880.
Mayland was one of the leading lights of the pioneer
photographic society, the Solar Club (1865–69), suc-
ceeding Henry Peach Robinson as Chancellor, and pass-
ing on the offi ce to William England. In Cambridge, he
photographed the construction of Sandringham House,
by special commission from Queen Victoria. The scale
of his carte-de-visite work in London enabled him to
survive bankruptcy in 1878. The studio featured in H.
Baden Pritchard’s 1882 book The Photographic Stud-
ies of Europe.
Mayland was an accomplished reciter and occasional
private actor, often in Shakespearian productions with
his wife Mary (1832–79), a niece of Sarah Siddons. Ill
health forced Mayland to close his studio in May 1882,
and he retired to Tunbridge Wells, although he died in
Islington on October 31, 1907. His collection of nega-
tives was acquired by Samuel Walker.
David WebbMAYNARD, RICHARD (1832–1907) AND
HANNAH (1834–1918)
Canadian photographer
Richard Maynard was born on February 22, 1832, in
Stratton, Cornwall, England, and his wife was born as
Hannah (or Anna) Hatherly on January 17, 1834, in Bude,
Cornwall. Married in 1852, they immigrated to Canada
and lived in Bowmanville, Ontario, for a decade. They re-
settled in Victoria, British Columbia, where she opened a
photographic studio and Richard worked as a cordwainer
(shoemaker). Hannah, who likely learned photography
in Bowmanville from R. & H. O’Hara, taught him the