Carte de Visite ∽ Woman with Vérascope

The Carte de Visite wasn't very successful in the beginning. Things started to change in 1859 when Disdéri published photos of the French Emperor Napoleon III in this format. The cards became a great success and were so popular that its usage became known as Cardomania and spread quickly throughout Europe, the United States and the rest of the world. People not only bought photographs of themselves so they could to share them with family and friends, but also collected photographs of the celebrities of that time.

I'm not a collector of Carte de Visite in particular, but I do have a special interest in vintage photos showing people with stereo cameras or stereoscopes. This Carte de Visite shows a woman with a stereo camera and camera bag. The size of the photo is 6 x 9,5cm. It's difficult to determine the exact model of the camera, but given the camera bag it looks like an early model of the Vérascope. It's special that the photographer on the image is a woman because the 19th and early 20th century society was mainly dominated by men and a female photographer is therefore less obvious.