Picture Analysis
Is this a photo of Alice Timms in mourning?
QThis is one of my family photographs. Written on the back is the name “Alice”. The only Alice in my family is my great great grandmother, Alice Timms, who was born in 1837. Her father died in 1863. Could this be a mourning photo? Alice and her family lived in the Paddington and Kensington areas of London, but the photo was taken in Peckham. Could this still be her?
Sheila Davis
AThis is a carte de visite (CDV) measuring about 4 inches by 2½ inches. Fashionable in Britain from 1860, these neat printed pictures were the first mass-produced photos, inspiring a surge in portrait photography from the early 1860s. CDVs stayed in production until the early 1900s, finally dying out before the First World War.
Many historical clues assist with dating and identifying individual CDVs, including examining the characteristics of the card mount; researching the photographic studio; considering the composition; and, especially, dating the fashions worn.
Using these techniques, I can confirm that this photograph accords perfectly with your great great grandmother, Alice Timms. It dates to the early to mid-1860s and the young lady looks to be aged in her 20s, as Alice was at the time. Her plain dark (black) gown with white cuffs is mourning attire, so this is almost certainly a formal mourning photograph that was taken the year after her father’s death in 1863. Usually people used a studio close to home, but they were mobile and Alice might, for example, have been visiting bereaved relatives in Peckham at that time.
Jayney Shrimpton p
1 SUBJECT
Early CDV photographs dating to the 1860s generally portray their subject as a full-length, doll-like figure in a contrived drawingroom interior, complete with furniture and curtain.
2 GOWN
Your ancestor’s formal day gown displays a pleated fitted bodice, padded sleeves and full circular skirt that is supported by a crinoline frame. These are characteristics of the fashionable style of the early to mid-1860s.
3 FABRIC
The dull, matt-black fabric of your great great grandmother’s dress was a special Victorian mourning material, her long chain also of black metal or beads. In time, some white was allowed, worn as a collar and deep cuffs.
4 MOUNT
CDV card mounts from the 1860s feature square corners and, typically, a modest printed reverse design comprising the details of the studio in the centre and, sometimes, mention of copies at the bottom.
5 PHOTOGRAPHER
The site photoLondon has an A-to-Z listing of early London photographers: photo london.org.uk/#/a-z?letter=a&page=1. Its entry for Alfred Harman states that his studio at Gunnersbury Villas, Harder’s Road, Peckham, operated for only a few years: between 1864 and 1867.