1434
of subjects including underwater photography and the
photographing of winter scenes.
In 1886 an article appeared in the British Journal
of Photography outlining the extent of the Valentine’s
operation which by then employed over one hundred
people. By 1888, their catalogue included over 20,000
views of Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland and Norway.
At around this time another generation of the family
entered the business, William’s son Harben Valentine.
He was also keen to use any technological innova-
tion which would give the fi rm an advantage over its
competitors. By the 1890s Harben was employing
the collotype process which allowed the mechanical
reproduction of photographic images which would
previously have been printed by hand. This greatly
increased the speed at which the fi rm could operate.
He was also to experiment with the photocrome and
photogravure processes.
In 1897 the British post offi ce permitted private
cards to be sent through the mail for the fi rst time and
it was in that year that the Valentine fi rm were to enter
the postcard market. Valentine and Sons were able to
compete in the rapidly expanding market due to the
technological advances which had been instigated by
Harben. The combined the collotype process with the
bitumen process to add colour. An indicator of their
success in the production of postcards was the number
of staff employed by the fi rm which rose from over 100
in 1886 to almost 1000 in 1900. The fi rm’s activities
spread overseas with branches opening in Canada, the
United States, South Africa and Australia. William Dob-
son Valentine handed management of the fi rm over to
Harben in 1900 though he was to retain an avid interest
in the fi rm until his death in 1907. The early years of the
twentieth century saw increased competition from Ger-
man postcard manufacturers and Valentine responded
by placing an emphasis upon the production of realistic
views undoubtedly utilising their immense collection
of negatives and their knowledge of topographical
photography. In 1908 they became the offi cial postcard
publishers for the International Franco-British Exhibi-
tion. It was at this time that they took on the twin globe
logo and its accompanying motto ‘famous throughout
the world.’
From about 1901 Valentine began to extend and di-
versify their interests to include the production of greet-
ing cards, children’s books and calendars. The number of
views commissioned by the fi rm began to shrink in the
1950s and family interest in the fi rm declined with the
death of Harben in 1949. The fi rm was eventually taken
over by John Waddington and Co. Ltd. in 1963. In 1971
the archive containing Valentine’s topographical views
was deposited with St. Andrew’s University, Fife, Scot-
land. Whilst the 150,000 views in the archive constitute
only a remnant of the half a million which were recorded
from 1878 to 1967 they provide a valuable record of
popular taste and topographical photography.
Orla Fitzpatrick
See also: Topographical Photography; Postcard;
Daguerreotype; Stereoscopy; Cartes-de-Visite;
Frith, Francis; Wilson, George Washington; Victoria,
Queen and Albert, Prince Consort; Valentine,
George Dobson; Photographic News (1858–1908);
British Journal of Photography; Collotype; and
Photogravure.Further Reading
Hannavy, John, A moment in time: Scottish contributions to pho-
tography, 1840–1920, Glasgow: Third Eye Centre, 1983.
Sidey, Tessa, Valentines of Dundee: photographs, postcards and
greeting cards from the 1850s to the present day, Dundee:
Dundee Museums and Art Galleries, 1979.
Smart, Robert, ‘Famous throughout the world: Valentine & Sons
Ltd., Dundee,’ in Review of Scottish Culture, no. 4, 1988,
75–89.
Stevenson, Sara and A.D. Morrison-Low (eds.), Scottish photog-
raphy: a bibliography 1839–1989, Edinburgh: Salvia, 1990.
Taylor, John, A dream of England: Landscape, photography and
the tourist’s imagination, Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1994.VALLOU DE VILLENEUVE, JULIEN
(1795–1866)
French, artist, lithographer, and photographer
Vallou de Villeneuve was born in Boissy-Saint-Léger on
12 December 1795. From his début at the Salon of 1814
(to 1840) as a painter he regularly exhibited lithographed
images of daily life, fashion, regional costumes and
erotica, many done after the work of English and Dutch
artists. Vallou, earlier a student of Millet and a lithogra-
pher of scenes of daily life, costume, and erotica, also
published his own lithographed compositions, mostly
‘female types.’ From 1820 to 1830 he acquired great
popularity for his engravings of fashions, costumes,
every day scenes, and erotic images. Many lithographs
based on his drawings were done by Raymond Noël
and Régnier.
Despite a long artistic tradition and an obvious delight
in the female nude, decorum in mid-century France,
required that the subject be removed from the reality
of the present—shown in mythological guise or as an
exotic creature, distant and non-threatening. The need to
provide a legitimate context for the depiction of the nude
was particularly compelling in photography, and Vallou
often appointed his models with the paraphernalia of the
painter’s studio (rugs, shawls, spears, beads, anklets,
and turbans). His most successful pictures, however, are
those least encumbered by artifi cial trappings; reveal-
ing more and borrowing less from painterly tradition,