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; John Russell, 1st Earl Russell; Edward Smith Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby; Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux; John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst; John Bright
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.