I have recently acquired a Carte de visite (CDV) of my Great Great Grandmother, Martha Fell. The purpose of this post is to record some details of it and see whether others who find this post can offer any thoughts on the card’s origin.
Carte de visites are small cards 2⅛ x 3½ inches (about 55mm x 9mm) in size. Typically they were made in the mid Victorian era by photographers. They consisted of a piece of cardboard – usually with the photographer’s details on the back with a thin albumen print pasted to the front. The process was patented in 1854 by André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri, and their usage continued until the early 1870’s when they were superseded by Cabinet Cards (about the size of a modern post card). [Ref: Wikipedia: Carte de visite, accessed 7 April 2021].
