Bradley & Philips

Bradley & Philips ran London’s most sought-after portrait studio in the 1870s, printing actors’ faces on stiff cards the size of playing cards so fans could slip them into albums or pin them to walls. They turned a day onstage into a tidy 30 seconds of stillness, capturing lace collars and rouge at just the right angle to make a melodrama hero look heroic, or a comedian look mischievous. Look up “Guy Little Theatrical Photograph, ca. 1875” to see how they froze a century of applause in a two-inch square.