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French calf leather album by Maquet, with silver gilt clasps and green watered silk board lining, each leaf having four embossed paper windows, containing 100 albumen cartes-de-visite (RCINs 2915115-2915213).
From the 1840s Queen Victoria began to acquire
Portrait Photographs in the Royal Collection

The Royal Family have collected, created and commissioned many portrait photographs

ABDULLAH FRÈRES : CONSTANTINOPLE

The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII)

1869

RCIN 2107142

Queen Alexandra when Princess of Wales (1844-1925)©

During a visit to Constantinople, now Istanbul, in 1869, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII (1841-1910) commissioned the studio Abdullah Frères to photograph himself and his wife, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra (1844-1925). The resulting cartes-de-visite commemorates the young couple's time abroad. Abdullah Frères were three Armenian brothers who established a photographic studio in the Ottoman Empire.

Introduced to England in 1857, the carte-de-visite consists of a portrait photograph mounted on heavy card. Cartes-de-visite were given and sent to friends and family, and photographs of notable society figures were sold and traded among the general public. The popularity and craze for cartes-de-visite, known as 'carteomania' or 'cardomania' lasted until the mid-1870s when the medium was replaced by the similar but larger cabinet card.


    The income from your ticket contributes directly to The Royal Collection Trust, a registered charity. The aims of The Royal Collection Trust are the care and conservation of the Royal Collection, and the promotion of access and enjoyment through exhibitions, publications, loans and educational activities.