Highlights from the photograph collections

Maull and Polyblank

George Cruikshank
George Cruikshank.
Albumen print, 1857. From 'Photographic
portraits of living celebrities' (London,
1856-1859). [Library reference: K.118.c]

As photography took hold of the public imagination in the 1850s, photographers began to see the potential for using photographic prints pasted into images.

Celebrity photographs

The growing demand for photographs of celebrities encouraged the London photographer Henry Maull and his partner Polyblank to issue a series of 40 parts in monthly instalments each containing one portrait and biographical text.

The series 'Photographic portraits of living celebrities' was one of a number of similar publications issued in the 1860s and 1870s.

Shown here is Maull and Polyblank's portrait of the painter, illustrator and caricaturist George Cruikshank (1792-1878).

 

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