L'École d'Anvers. Portraits biographies cartes de visite. Collection Dupont

About this artwork

opschrift, verso, gedrukt: ‘ETABLISSEMENT PHOTOGRAPHIQUE/ de/ J. DUPONT/ Place de Meir 32/ ANVERS/ Maison fondée en 1853’

Art Historical Context

This carte de visite, an albumen print created by Joseph Dupont in 1861, exemplifies the revolutionary photographic format that swept through Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. Measuring just 101 by 62 millimetres, the small card bears the stamp of Dupont’s Antwerp studio at Place de Meir 32, an establishment he founded in 1853. Such portraits were designed to be exchanged and collected like calling cards, allowing people to assemble personal galleries of notable contemporaries. Dupont’s series, titled “L’École d’Anvers,” gathers likenesses of artists associated with Antwerp’s historic school, each accompanied by a short biographical note. The albumen process, which fixed the image on paper coated with egg-white emulsion, delivered the crisp detail and warm tonality that made these cards so appealing. Through these affordable photographs, Dupont helped democratise portraiture while preserving the faces and stories of Antwerp’s artistic community for future generations.