The Carte de Visite and Domestic Digital Photography

Abstract

This article reconsiders the carte de visite through an awareness of twenty-first century domestic digital photography. Employing recent scholarship, nineteenth century commentary and a study of 40 carte de visite albums, the article questions a widely held perception of carte de visite portraiture as privileging memory over the other social functions of domestic photography. This perspective on memory and the carte de visite is the used to interrogate the relationship of memory to twenty-first century domestic digital photography.