909
ing the 1850s. Best known for his pictures of the Great
Exhibition and the British royal family, it was the advent
of the celebrity carte-de-visite that secured his commer-
cial fortune. Other publications include The Illustrated
News of the World and National Portrait Gallery of
Eminent Personages (1858–63), Royal Album (1860),
and Mayall’s Celebrities of the London Stage; A series
of photographic portraits in character (1867–68). After
being widowed, Mayall married for a second time in
1871, and had two daughters and one daughter by Celia
Victoria Hooper. A prominent member of the Brighton
community in later life, he died on 6 March 1901.
See also: Rejlander, Oscar Gustav; Cameron,
Julia Margaret; Claudet, Antoine-François-
Jean; Athenaeum; Victoria, Queen and Albert,
Prince Consort; Photographic Exchange Club
and Photographic Society Club, London; Archer,
Frederick Scott; Carte-de-Visites; British Journal of
Photography; and Marion & Co.
Further Reading
Gaspey, William, The Great Exhibition of hr World’s Industry,
held in London in 1851: described and illustrated by...
engravings, from daguerreotypes by Beard, Mayall etc.,
London: 1852–1861.
Gernsheim, Helmut, and Alison Gernsheim, The History of Pho-
tography; From the camera obscura to the beginning of the
modern era, 1955; London: Thames and Hudson, 1969.
Lee, David, “The First Royal Wedding Photographer,” British
Journal of Photography 133 (July 1986): 840–843.
Mayall, J.E., The Illustrated News of the World and National
Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages. Chiefl y from Photo-
graphs by Mayall, engraved on Steel by D.J. Pound, London:
1858–1863.
Plunkett, John, Queen Victoria—First Media Monarch, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003.
Pritchard, H. Baden, The Photographic Studios of Europe, Lon-
don: Piper and Castle, 1882.
Pritchard, Michael. A Directory of London Photographers, Lon-
don: Photoresearch, 1986.
Reynolds, Leonie, and Gill Arthur, “The Mayall Story,” History
of Photography 9.2, ,1985, 89–107.
Reynolds, Leonie, and Gill Arthur, “The Mayall Story: a post-
script,” History of Photography 11.1, 1987, 77–80.
Werge, John The Evolution of Photography, London: Piper and
Carter 1890.
MAYER AND PIERSON COMPANY
The fashionable Parisian commercial photography fi rm
of Mayer and Pierson, consisting of Ernest Mayer, his
brother Frédéric and Pierre Louis Pierson, was fi rst
established as Mayer Frères in the early 1850s as a
purveyor of photographic supplies and studio portraits.
Pierson, a daguerreotypist, joined the fi rm by 1854
and the company operated out of lavish studios on the
Boulevard des Capucines serving such powerful Second
Empire fi gures as Napoleon III and his one-time mistress
the Countess de Castiglione (Virginia Oldoini), actress
Rachel and composer Rossini. The fi rm, together with
the many others that populated Paris during this period,
was nurtured by the modernizing principles of Napoleon
III which promoted photography as both a symbol of
modern France and a desirable luxury good. Special-
izing in studio portraits, celebrity cartes-de-visite and
the use of such novel processes and techniques as the
ambrotype, Mayer and Pierson reached the pinnacle of
its success in the late 1850s and early 1860s through a
fruitful combination of artistry, technology and sound
business practice; by 1862, however, Ernest Mayer had
sold his share of the company to Pierson, who had taken
over the business. In 1874 Mayer and Pierson was sold
to Pierson’s son-in-law Gaston Braun and was incorpo-
rated in 1876 under his father, the photographer Adolphe
Braun. Pierson remained manager of the company until- The Mayer and Pierson archive of glass plate nega-
tives is housed by the Musée d’Unterlinden in Colmar
and photographs representing the fi rm can be found in
the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
J. Paul Getty Museum and many private collections.
The reputation of Mayer and Pierson rose above that
of many other Second Empire commercial fi rms because
of its illustrious clientele and high profi le commissions,
profi cient use of hand-coloring to enhance its products,
state of the art studios, effective use of advertising,
prominent displays of photographs at World’s Fairs,
satellite studios in London and Brussels, publication of
La Photographie considérée comme art et industrie in
1862, and successful lawsuit to change copyright laws
during the same year. Napoleon III is believed to have
fi rst visited the Mayer Frères studio in 1853 and contin-
ued his family’s relationship with the company until at
least 1860. In 1856, the Emperor selected the fi rm to be
the offi cial photographers of the world leaders gathered
for his triumph of diplomacy, the Paris Peace Congress.
The following year Napoleon III whimsically appeared
with the Empress Eugénie, their son and his pony for a
portraiture session at the studio. The company, however,
had its detractors, including their competitor Nadar, who
denigrated the photographers as portraitists, claiming
that “they restricted themselves, very profi tably, to one
style... of picture.... Without a thought for compos-
ing the picture in a manner favorable to the sitter” (The
Second Empire, 1978, 421).
The Emperor, though, seemed not to notice this and
encouraged members of his court to patronize Mayer and
Pierson, among them his Italian mistress the Countess de
Castiglione, with whom he had an affair between 1856
and 1857. The Countess worked with Pierson frequently
between 1856 and 1867 and then only sporadically until
her death in 1899. She is perhaps the company’s most
infamous, inventive, and intriguing patron, one who took