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Painted photography backdrops


From roughly 1860 to 1920painted photography backdrops were a standard feature of early photography studios. Generally of rustic or quasi-classical design, but sometimes presenting a bourgeoisie trompe-l'œil, they eventually fell out of fashion with the advent of the Brownie and Kodak cameras which brought photography to the masses with concurrent changes to public sensibility. Inasmuch as they were produced for six decades by local artisans, they can provide important clues to the provenance of old family photographs for genealogical research, and their staged influence lives on in "old-timey" photography sets. Furthermore, they are of some interest to specialized collectors of the history of photography.

Illinois, 1862

Sara Forbes Bonetta photographed by Camille Silvy, Great Britain, 1862

Japanese men in 1870 with Irezumi

Scotland, 1875

India, before 1877

France, 1870-1879

The Town of Berlin (now Kitchener) Ontario, 1878

Frederick Douglass with his second wife Helen Pitts Douglass and her sister (standing), c. 1884

Leon Trotsky, 1888, Russia

One of the Barrison sisters, Berlin, 1903

Mignon Nevada as Ophelia in Ambroise Thomas's opera, Hamlet, c. 1910

Johannes Holzmann, 1914, Europe

Guide Alice, Victoria, Australia, c. 1900-30


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