Mayall, John Jabez Edwin
Series of Photographs of Eminent Men. Messrs Marion & Co., 152 Regent St., 1862. Seven albumen prints after photographs by Mayall, all flush mounted to captioned card mounts, five signed and dated 1861 in the negative, 6 in original paper wrappers printed with title details, all signed by subjects on the mount, all contained in likely original folio folder.
The seven photographs comprise:
Prince Albert, the Prince Consort - this photograph was taken two months before Albert's death from typhoid and is likely the last taken of him. After his death the picture was hugely popular, with 70,000 of the carte de visite ordered from Mayall.
W.E. Gladstone - Liberal, if not actively Radical and Socialist MP, and four-term Prime Minister.
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell - taken in the year he was elevated to the Peerage. Russell was a crusader, and principal architect of the Reform Act, but ultimately an indifferent PM whose terms in office aided the fall of the Whig party and almost destroyed the Liberal party.
Edward Smith Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby - another Whig politician, though a moderate who opposed the extreme views of Russell. He is one of the few Prime Ministers to have had three or more separate periods in office. After the fall of the Whigs, his coterie merged with the Tory party and he has been hailed as the father of the modern party.
Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux - a reformer and liberal advocate in the House, supporting abolition, free trade and Parliamentary reform. Despite his successes (matched only by the dislike he engendered in colleagues), which include holding the record for the longest non-stop Parliamentary speech, he is perhaps best remembered today as the designer of the four-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage which bears his name (the brougham) and the discover and populariser of Cannes as a holiday destination for the wealthy.
John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst - three times Lord High Chancellor, Lyndhurst was noted primarily as an obstructionist in Lords and for his dramatic speeches, especially in opposition to Russia during the Crimean War.
John Bright - the Quaker Bright was a Radical and Liberal politician, most known perhaps for co-founding the Anti-Corn Law League and his long political friendship with Cobden. Bright was a noted orator and gifted the world the phrases 'to flog a dead horse' and 'the mother of parliaments'.
Mayall was a devoted believer in the photographer as artist. He used his background in chemical dye works to continually refine the process of Daguerreotypes. He was a pioneer of allegorical photographs and his work led him into a friendship with Turner, with whom he exchanged ideas on light and shadow. It was the Great Exhibition though which propelled him to the forefront of British photography. After this, his portrait work was in high demand and in 1860 he was called upon by the Royal Family. These pictures made his name and fortune, as he was granted the rights to sell the pictures as cartes de visite. The photograph of Albert comes from this period and was likely his most famous and desired print.