Portraits of Eminent Men
In 1852, Mayall advertised a second establishment in London, situated at 224 Regent Street on the corner of Argyll Place, which Mayall claimed had "the finest situation for light in London." In an advertisement published in the Hastings & St Leonards' News on May 21, 1852, visitors to London were invited to inspect "Mr. Mayall's extensive collection of Portraits of Eminent Men" at both of Mayall's Daguerreotype Institutions. Among these were: Charles Dickens; William Penn Cossen; and Louis Jacques Mandee Daguerre
In May 1860, he made a number of portraits of the Royal Family. Mayall was given permission to publish the portraits of the Royal Family as a set of cartes-de-visite. In August 1860, the cartes were released in the form of a Royal Album, consisting of 14 small portraits of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children. The Royal Album was an immediate success, and hundreds of thousands were sold.
Britain began collecting carte de visite portraits of famous people. Another series of royal portraits by Mayall was published in 1861. Prince Albert succumbed to typhoid fever in December 1861. His death created an enormous demand for his portrait. The Photographic News later reported that within one week of his death "no less than 70,000 of his carte de visite were ordered from Marion & Co." By the end of the decade, Marion & Co, had paid Mayall £35,000 for his portraits of the Royal Family.
The carte de visite (cdv) was the most popular of the portrait formats. The cdv also generated the most income. Mayall produced over half a million cartes a year, which helped him secure an annual income of £12,000.
He left his eldest son Edwin to run his London studios and moved down to Brighton with his wife and two younger sons. On July 18, 1864, he opened his new photographic portrait studio at 90-91 Kings Road, close to the recently built Grand Hotel. In an announcement placed in the pages of the Brighton Examiner, he stated that he had "spared neither pains nor expertise in preparing, for the accommodation of the nobility and gentry resident at or visiting Brighton, one of the most efficient studios ever built." Although he addressed his comments particularly to the "nobililty and gentry", Mayall admitted that he was "not unmindful of the fact . . . that moderate charges are as necessary as general excellence to ensure extensive public patronage." Mayall charged £1.1s (£1.05p) for a set of 12 carte de visite portraits and £5.5s (£5.25p) for his "highly finished" coloured portrait photographs.
Read more about this topic: John Jabez Edwin Mayall
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