the magazine of the - Library of Virginia

800 E. Broad St. | Richmond, VA 23219
www.lva.virginia.gov
NON-PROFIT ORG.
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
RICHMOND, VA
PERMIT NO. 1088
Likely Signed by Lee
Carte-de-visite photographs were popular Civil War–era keepsakes
Tucked away within the numerous photographs of the Jones
Family papers (Accession 44050) are two autographed
carte-de-visite prints of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, taken
in the studio of renowned photographer Matthew Brady. The Lee
signatures on the back may be authentic autographs as opposed
to reproduced or duplicated ones. Though the two signatures are
not identical, they are very similar, indicating that the autographs
came from the same hand. Perhaps a member of the Jones family—
possibly John Wigginton Jones (1807–1894) or Edward Valentine
Jones (1844–1923)—sent Lee these cards and considered himself
rewarded when they were returned autographed.
Introduced by French photographer André Adolphie Eugène
Disdéri in 1854, the carte-de-visite photograph—a small albumen
print mounted on a card (2 ½ inches by 4 inches)—was less expensive
and easier to produce than the daguerreotype and the ambrotype.
Images of celebrities were mass produced and sold to a clamoring
public, and the carte-de-visite’s popularity exploded across Europe
by 1859 and in the United States by 1860. Photographs of presidents
and generals became big sellers. At the start of the Civil War, soldiers
marching off to battle gave the prints to their loved ones as keepsakes.
The carte-de-visite’s reign ended in the 1870s when it was eclipsed by
a larger print called a cabinet card.
—Trenton Hizer, Senior Finding-Aids Archivist
A version of this article originally appeared in the Library’s in-house
online newsletter, The Delimiter.
SPOTLIGHT
CROWD-PLEASING PORTRAITS These carte-de-visite prints of Confederate general Robert E. Lee may include authentic autographs. In the 1860s, the public purchased these prints
of celebrities and often sent them to those individuals in the hope that the photographs would be signed and returned.