Guy Little Theatrical Photograph

The photograph was created by the studio J. Russell & Sons, which specialized in the carte de visite format. The process involved coating paper with albumen, exposing it to a glass plate negative, and affixing the resulting print to a card bearing the studio’s imprint, a standard practice for portrait photography in the 1860s.

Originally issued as part of a larger set of cartes de visite and later cabinet cards, the card was removed from its backing and bound into an album by collector Guy Tristram Little (d. 1953). Little, a solicitor and avid collector of theatrical ephemera, bequeathed the album to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where it now resides.

During the Victorian era, cartes de visite became a popular medium for disseminating images of public figures, including actors, scenic views, and artworks. Their small size and affordability encouraged the habit of exchanging and displaying them, a precursor to later postcard culture.