Cabinet Cards

Thompson & Son was a 19th-century photographic studio located at 75 King St. E., Toronto, operating in the Late Victorian era (roughly 1885–1905). The firm produced historical portrait formats like vintage carte de visite (CDV) and cabinet cards. The sepia-toned cabinet cards and CDVs featured local citizens, often bearing the embossed or stamped studio signature "Thompson & Son, Toronto" on the decorative mount. The carte de visite or 'visiting card', (abbr. CdV) was a format of small photograph which was patented in Paris by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854, although first used by Louis Dodero in 1851. I have such a photo of my great-grandfather (born 1877) likely taken in the early to mid 1890s.

Each card was the size of a formal visiting card about 4½ x 2½ inches and such photograph cards, were commonly traded among friends and visitors in the 1860s onward. Albums for the collection and display of cards became a common fixture in Victorian parlors. The popularity of the format and its rapid uptake worldwide were due to their relative thrift, which made portrait photographs accessible to a broader demographic, and prior to the advent of mechanical reproduction of photographs, led to the publication and collection of portraits of prominent persons. It was the success of the carte de visite that led to photography's institutionalization.

The carte de visite was usually an albumen print from a collodion negative on thin paper glued onto a thicker paper card. The size of a photo was approximately the size of a business card, mounted on a card sized 2.5 in × 4 in. The logo of the photographer was generally printed on the front or back, as both protection of copyright and advertising.

A collodion negative was a transparent glass photographic plate coated with a light-sensitive nitrocellulose emulsion, invented in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer. It dominated photography until the late 1800s because it combined sharp detail with the ability to make unlimited paper prints. An albumen print is a 19th-century photographic technique that uses egg whites, salt, and silver nitrate. Invented in 1847 by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, it was the dominant photographic printing process from the 1850s through the 1890s.

High-quality paper is coated with a mixture of egg white (albumen) and salt. The paper is next treated with a silver nitrate solution to make it sensitive to light. A negative is placed directly on the paper and exposed to sunlight ("printed out" without chemical development). The print is usually toned with gold chloride to improve stability and create rich brown or purple tones. The surface is glossy and smooth, because the image sits on top of the egg-white layer rather than sinking into the paper fibers. They are very sharp with clear details. As they age, the photo often shows a yellowed or faded look due to silver oxidation and the natural aging of the albumen layer.