Within the spectrum of early photographic portraiture, the firm of Maull and Polyblank [founded 1854; Maull & Co. from 1866, and Maull & Cox from 1879] fits neatly into the period between the heyday of the daguerreotype and the rising proliferation of the carte-de-visite format. The firm’s standardized portraits — produced from glass negatives and printed in uniform size — depicted many notable individuals in the fields of art, science, politics, and education, and were made available for purchase on a per print basis.... In nearly all cases the subjects are photographed approximately three-quarters of full figure, and they may usually be found to conform to one of a half-dozen traditional poses. Wherever possible, associated objects (such as plants for botanists or stones for geologists) are included in the image.... These painterly, studied poses were traditional for the medium of brushes and oil, which photography was replacing, but they did not work effectively before the camera’s more rapid gaze. From their images we know what the subjects looked like; from the captions we know who they were; but from the photographs themselves we can catch only the spirit of the age, not that of the individuals. — Roy Flukinger, p.31
Portraits
Bibliography
Flukinger, Roy. The Formative Decades: Photography in Great Britain, 1839-1920. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985.
Created 25 April 2019
Last modified 30 April 2026