Portrait of Fanny Appleton Longfellow, circa 1855

01

Artifact Overview

Cartes-de-visite - small photographic prints on cardboard stock - were made in professional photographers' studios. This early example shows a portrait of Fanny Appleton Longfellow, wife of renowned poet and educator Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Americans collected and exchanged cartes-de-visites, which remained popular in the United States from the Civil War in the 1860s through the 1880s.

Artifact Details

Artifact

Carte-de-visite (Card photograph)

Date Made

circa 1859-1865

Subject Date

circa 1850

Location

By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center

Object ID

2012.0.5.16

Credit

From the Collections of The Henry Ford

Material

Cardboard
Paper (Fiber product)

Technique

Albumen process

Color

Black-and-white (Colors)

Dimensions

Height: 3.875 in
Width: 2.375 in

Inscriptions

Text on back of carte reads: PUBLISHED BY / THE NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHIC CO. / No.. 453 BROADWAY / NEW YORK Ink stamp on back reads: JOSEPH WARD / 125 WASHINGTON ST. / BOSTON Handwritten in pencil on front under image: Longfellows wife