Figure 1.---This cabinet portrait shows Maitland Brereton (writing indistinct) in 1888. The studio was Ramsey on the Isle of Man. Maitland sent the portrait to his Auntie Annie. He wears a single breasted sack suit with a vest. Notice the very large lapel and the feint piping. He has an emaculate Eton collar, very common at the time. We assmed this was his school uniform, but his tie does not look like a school tie. The mount has a gold colored trim.

Mounts and other indicators such as backgrounds, furniture, setting, nd clothing can all be very helpful in dating cabinet cards. By assessing dated images, we can gain insights that will help us date undated cabinet cards. The mounts we see in Britain including the studio information at the bottom of the card were very similar to American cabinet cards. We are not sure why this was. We wonder if some of the same companes may have been involved. We note considerable similarities with American portraits as the mount styles and studio posing and background settings are virtually identical. We think the chronological patterns were similar, but apparently not identical. Cabinet card mounts were very similar in the 19th century (1860s-90s). Without the studio information at the bottom, it would be difficult to differentiate American and English cabinet cards. Even the lettering is similar. This was often not the case for CDVs which went out of favor in America. Because of our limited English archive, however, we are still just beginning to work out the details.

1860s

Cabinet cards appered in the 1860s , about mid-decade, but we have found very few examples. Almost all the photogrags we have found are CDVs.

1870s

We continue to see mostly CDVs in England during the 1870s. Unlike the United States, cabinet cards did not rapidly replace CDVs.

1880s

The 1880s English cabinet cards might still have a subsatantial margin round the print. Note here there is a large margin including the area within and outside of the rule line (figure 1). Colored ruling was very common with CDVs when they first appeared. They were very common in the 1860s and very prominent. We see some cabinet cards without the city indicated on the front, but believe that these were mostly London studios. They coninued to be used with cabinet cards. And we see still see them in the 1880s, especially the early-80s. We note a lot of cabinet cards with mounts done in dark colors, sometimes in gilded letters.

1890s

We tend to see English cabinet cards with very narrow margins in the 1890s. The actual print takes up more of the card than was common in earlier decades. And we do not see the the ruling lines used as framing that were so common in earlier cards. We note large numbers of light colored mounts in the the 1890s. This seems similar to the trends in America. The text at the right side of the bottom studio information tended to be different than American cards. You can see that in the 1896 card here (figure 1). We do still note some cabinet cards done in dark colors in the early-90s. We are not sure yet, however, how common this was. The light-colored mounts seem more common. This seems comparable if not identical to American trends. We will need aarger achive before we can make any rel assessment.

Created: 2:26 AM 12/5/2012
Last updated: 5:54 PM 3/18/2017