“Eugène Disdéri (1819-1889) was a French photographer who gained great fame for patenting his version of the carte de visite, a small photographic image which was mounted on a card. Disdéri, a brilliant showman, made this system of mass-production portraiture world famous. Disdéri’s’s cartes de visite were 6×9 cm, about the size of conventional visiting cards of the time, and were made by a camera with four lenses and a sliding plate holder; a design inspired by the recently-invented stereoscopic cameras. The novelty quickly spread throughout the world. According to Eduard Liesegand, a German colleague, Disdéri’s studio became “really the Temple of Photography — a place unique in its luxury and elegance. Daily he sells three to four thousand francs worth of portraits”. (Wikipedia)
Eugène Disdéri ou la photographie bourgeoise – quelques idées reçues
“Avec la photographie, la bourgeoisie a trouvé sa technique et son esthétique ; avec la photo-carte de visite – dont Disdéri dépose le brevet en 1854 – elle trouve son support et son usage.” « Puis, coup décisif, l’apparition de Disdéri et de la carte de visite qui donnait pour quelque vingt francs douze portraits quand on avait payé jusque-là cinquante ou cent francs pour un seul ». (Nadar). “Tous, bourgeois, aristocrates et rastaquouères, se faisaient photographier devant les décors de son invention » (Comtesse de Pange, Comment j’ai vu 1900, Grasset, 1962, p. 82).
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