Tag: Victorian Photographs

E.M. At 17

I can find no record of any Victorian photographer called "A. Lowe" who was based in Melton - indeed I am not even sure where Melton is, unless it is a shortened form of Melton Mowbray. On the reverse of this little Carte De Visite is written, "E.M. 17 Yrs 1900". As with all such … Continue reading E.M. At 17

Transcending Silver Salts In Hebden Bridge

A good vintage photograph is one in which the personality of the subject being photographed somehow transcends the chemical process of silver salts and hypo fixer, and flows straight off the pasteboard card. This photograph of an unknown woman from the Hebden Bridge studio of Crossley Westerman is one such photograph. Westerman established his "Electric … Continue reading Transcending Silver Salts In Hebden Bridge

20 Images : 3. Booth Denton – The Grocer Of Mirfield

Booth Denton of Knowle, Mirfield If you spend your life digging in the genealogical allotments of ephemera, you learn to welcome an unusual name. You can keep your "John Smiths" and your "Tom Browns" : give me a "Roderick Trencheon-Philpotts" any day. Or, more specifically, give me a Booth Denton - which is the name … Continue reading 20 Images : 3. Booth Denton – The Grocer Of Mirfield

A Genius Too Great For Slaithwaite

I have a large box of Victorian studio photographs at home, and I am slowly working my way through them: looking at them, scanning them, and seeing where they take me. Today they took me on a fascinating trans-continental journey in the company of John Jabez Edwin Mayall, pioneer photographer, trans-Atlantic entrepreneur, and friend of … Continue reading A Genius Too Great For Slaithwaite

Thomas Boxell Of Brighton …

  This small photograph of a seated woman is the work of a Victorian photographer called Thomas Boxell, who - at the time this photograph was taken in the late 1870s - was operating out of a studio in Pickering, Yorkshire. The story of Thomas Boxell is typical of so many of the semi-itinerant studio … Continue reading Thomas Boxell Of Brighton …

Instantaneous Sadness

There is a sadness about this woman of two centuries ago. It is as though the instantaneous camera of Mr. William Colton Pearson has captured her in a moment of doubt: not quite knowing what awaits in the new century that lies just around the next bend of Manchester Road.

Up And Down Bold Street With Arthur Medrington

Arthur Stanhope Medrington opened an artist studio at 128 Bold Street in Liverpool in the late 1870s. Like so many jobbing artists of the time, his work was largely confined to providing relatively cheap portraits of Victorian middle class families - the type of work and the type of market that the new invention of … Continue reading Up And Down Bold Street With Arthur Medrington

A Chocolate Wrapped In Black Crape

My first thought when I examined this old Carte de Visite from the Wolverhampton studios of Carl Holt was, who was the real woman under all these clothes?  She has the look of a bleached milk chocolate wrapped in too many layers of coloured cellophane - or rather mourning-black crape. It is high summer outside, … Continue reading A Chocolate Wrapped In Black Crape

History Seeps In Lowestoft

I was in Lowestoft a couple of weeks ago and I probably walked past the studio where this portrait was taken 140 years ago. Like so many Victorian photographs, history seeps out of its sepia salts.