CARTE DE VISITE

Carte de visite produced by EPHRAIM CUTTER

CARTE DE VISITE. The carte de visite was a small photograph which was patented in Paris, France by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854. It was usually made of an albumen print, a thin paper photograph mounted on a thicker paper card. The size of a carte de visite is 54.0 mm (2.125 in) × 89 mm (3.5 in) mounted on a card sized 64 mm (2.5 in) × 100 mm (4 in).

The Carte de Visite was slow to gain widespead use until 1859, when Disdéri published Emperor Napoleon III's photos. The new invention was so popular it was known as "cardomania" and eventually spread throughout the world.

Each photograph was the size of a visiting card. The cards became enormously popular and were traded among friends and visitors. The immense popularity of these card photographs led to the publication and collection of photographs of prominent persons. Albums for the collection and display of cards became common in Victorian homes.

By the early 1870s, cartes de visite were replaced by "cabinet cards," which were also usually albumen prints, but larger, mounted on cardboard backs measuring 110 mm (4.5 in) by 170 mm (6.5 in). Cabinet cards remained popular into the early 20th century when home snapshot photography became a mass phenomenon.