420
He is best known for his carte-de-visite business which
fl ourished through the 1850s and 1860s. He worked per-
sistently to promote and expand his enterprise. Toward
this end, he fi led numerous patents for photographic
inventions, including the carte-de-visite, and wrote
books and brochures outlining his research, technical
and aesthetic processes, and philosophies about pho-
tography. He died on October 14, 1889 in the Hôpital
Ste.-Anne, an institution for indigents, alcoholics and
the mentally ill.
See also: Le Gray, Gustave; Waxed Paper Negative
Processes; Wet Collodion Negative; Lacan, Ernst;
Carte-de-Visite; and Expositions Universelle, Paris
(1854, 1855, 1867 etc.).
Further Reading
Disdéri, André-Adophe-Eugène, Manuel opératoire de photogra-
phie sur collodion instantané [Operating manual for photogra-
phy on instantaneous collodion], Paris: A. Gaudin, 1853.
Disdéri, André-Adophe-Eugène, Renseignements photographique
indispensables à tous, Paris: published by the author, 1855.
Disdéri, André-Adophe-Eugène, Application de la photographie
à la reproduction des oeuvres d’art [Photographic applica-
tions for the reproduction of works of art], Paris: published
by the author, 1861.
Disdéri, André-Adophe-Eugène, L’Art et la photographie [Art
and photography], Paris: published by the author, 1862.
McCauley, Elizabeth Anne, A.A.E. Disdéri and the Carte de
visite Portrait Photograph, New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1985.
Rouillé, André, La Photographie en France, Textes & Contro-
verses: une Anthologie 1816–1871, Paris: Macula, 1989.
Sobieszek, Robert A., “Composite Images and the Origins of
Photomontage: Part II, The Formalist Strain,” Art Forum, Oct.
1978, vol. 17, 40–44.
DISDÉRI, GENEVIÈVE-ELISABETH
(1817–1878)
French photographer and studio owner
Geneviève-Elisabeth Disdéri was born Geneviève-
Elisabeth Francart in France in 1817. She married
André- Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri in 1843 and gave birth
to six children over the following decade, but only one
son survived childhood. In 1848, the family moved from
Paris to the French town of Brest, where her brother was
a prominent member of the community and helped them
open a daguerreotype studio. Portraits from their studio
are labelled “M. et Mme. Disdéri.” Mme. Disdéri is
known to have added gold highlights to some daguerreo-
types by hand. M. Disdéri left Brest in 1852 due to politi-
cal and fi nancial troubles, and later opened a successful
photographic studio in Paris. Mme. Disdéri remained in
Brest and continued to run the studio until the late 1860s,
adopting the new collodion technique and producing the
carte de visite photographs popularized by her husband.
In addition to portraits, she produced a series of views of
“Brest et ses environs” from 1856-1858. One photograph
from the series, “Cimétière de Plougastel, groupe de
paysans” (c.1856) portrays both architectural elements
and local people. In 1872, she moved to Paris and set up
her own photographic studio. She died on December 18,
1878 in a Paris public hospital.
Andrea KordaDIVALD, KÁROLY (1830–1897)
The Divald Family is one of the most famous and widely
known photographer-dynasties in Hungary. Károly Di-
vald, born in Selmecbánya, now in Slovakia November
1830—died in Budapest, November 1897, was one of
the pioneers of the 1860s due to his Hungarian alpine
photography. In the 19th century he was the best-known
landscape photographer of the country, and the best
known owner of several photographic studie and photo-
reprographic printing offi ces. His photos taken of the
High Tatra, the Carpathians and the neighbouring small
towns became highly popular in contrast to the graphic
prints of that time. The photographic studios and printing
offi ces established by him in Eperjes, Bártfafürdö and
Budapest, under the name of Károly Divald and Sons
(Divald Károly és Fiai) worked effi ciently and success-
fully up until the 1940s. Three of his sons—Adolf, Lajos
and Károly Jr.—followed in their father’s footsteps, and at
the turn of the century the studios had become big enter-
prises and expanded to the cities of Budapest and Bártfa,
Eperjes in the then Upper Hungary, today Slovakia. The
Divald’s shops were the biggest picture postcard manu-
facturers of that time. Károly Divald’s fourth son, Kornél
became a famous short-story writer and art historian, his
work consisting of collecting topographical of the ten
public monuments of Upper Hungary. He was the fi rst
art historian and advocate of monuments who regarded
taking photographs of the spotted public monuments, art
treasures as an organic part of his work.
Károly Divald was the fi rst in the 19th century to
photographed townships and historic monuments in
Upper Hungary, a territory which was a part of the Aus-
tro- Hungarian Monarchy until 1921. Upper Northern
Hungary was the fi rst place where, in the 1860s and ’70s,
mass tourism and bathing resorts developed, which fos-
tered local tourism. This novelty and modernity, brought
about not only considerable changes to the area’s way
of life but also the introduction of new trades, including
photography. The social and professional rise of Károly
Divald was in part due to these changes. In the course
of this part of his career a new and special genre was
formed in Europe, tourist photography, which supplied
travelers with souvenir-like products of a particular
town or place. Divald’s series of books, Photographs
of High Tatra. Published in Eperjes in 1873 is a good