Girl at the Civet Cat Bazaar, Dublin 1860s

Carte-de-visite by John Lawrence, Dublin, 1860s Source: Author’s collection

This carte-de-visite photograph was taken in the 1860s at John Fortune Lawrence’s photographic studio and Civet Cat Bazaar. The cat referred to in the business name is a nocturnal mammal associated with ‘fox dung coffee’ which is produced when coffee berries are harvested from the droppings of the Asian palm civet! In addition to a photographic studio, Lawrence also sold toys, sports equipment and fancy goods from his premises at 39 Grafton Street, Dublin.

This little girl, standing doll-like on a studio chair, is wearing an off-the-shoulder wide hemmed silk dress which typifies the 1860s. A single string of coral was believed to protect her health. She wears bloomers and white socks with black patent leather hook-and-eye boots. The hairstyle is very on trend: short, parted in the middle and swept behind her ears with a hairband. Overall her outfit is very like that worn by Princess Beatrice in a photo session from May 1860. In it Beatrice was photographed with her mother Queen Victoria by John Jabez Edwin Mayall and you can see here that her hairstyle, necklace and boots are very similar.

Advertisement for Brown, Thomas, and Co., The Nation, 16th April 1864

In 1864, Lawrence employed the architect William George Murray to design several additions to his building (now a Burger King) including a ‘large wareroom, archery gallery for butt shooting and photographic gallery with waiting rooms.’

Verso of carte-de-visite by John Lawrence, Dublin, 1860s Source: Author’s collection

Advertisements placed by Lawrence reveal Dublin’s rich consumer culture and the wide variety of products that were available. Many of the toys were imported from Germany or France and included magic lanterns, wax and rag dolls, dissected maps, bon-bon boxes, dolls’ houses, clock work toys, panoramas, racing games and tool chests.

Some of the games and toys are unfamiliar to us today, for example, Cannonade was a game of chance played with a teetotum (a small spinning top); Fantoccini figures were puppets imported directly from Italy. Pope Joan was a card game played on a round board. In December 1856, Lawrence offered two very topical games based on the Crimean War: Battle of Inkerman and Siege of Sebastopol.

Siege of Sebastopol game, Bodleian Libraries

Lawrence was constantly diversifying. In the late 1850s he sold birds and bird cages including parrots, java sparrows, waxbills and indigo birds. In March 1854, he announced that he was the pyrotechnic artist to the Lord Lieutenant. Selling many kinds of fireworks and offering to forward them ‘to all parts of the Kingdom, and competent persons sent to fire them, if required.’ He also made rocking horses covered in natural skins!

In 1863 Lawrence advertises that he is offering the carte-de-visite process along with coloured photographs and he sold albums and celebrity carte-de-visites. One of these was a photograph of General Burke ‘taken since his arrest.’ Burke [Bourke in some notices] was a Fenian leader who was arrested in April 1867. Lawrence was not the only studio selling political carte-de-visites. His notice in The Freeman’s Journal of the 7^th of June 1867, appeared alongside one from Lesage’s studio, at 40 Lower Sackville Street which announced the sale of cartes depicting General Burke, John McCafferty and Patrick Doran ‘taken from life in Kilmainham Jail.’ They had been arrested and sentenced to death for high treason causing much uproar during that summer. After large demonstrations their sentences were eventually commuted mainly upon the strength of Burke and McCafferty’s claims to American citizenship. Both had fought in the American Civil War. A photo of McCafferty by Lesage is held in the National Library of Ireland and you can see what he looked like here.

The Freeman’s Journal, 7th June 1867

John Lawrence (1833-1897) ran his Grafton Street studio from 1854 until 1884 when it was taken over by Louis Werner. Lawrence’s negatives were taken over by his brother William Lawrence whose better known studio was on Sackville street (now O’Connell Street).

Read Full Post »

The height of fashion in 1860s Dublin: carte-de-visite by Thomas North, Grafton Street

This woman sports one of the most sought after garments of the 1860s. Her spectacular paisley patterned shawl is as voluminous as the crinolined silk skirt it partially covers. A fine shawl such as this was definitely a status symbol!

Numerous outlets throughout Dublin sold shawls including Switzer, Ferguson & Co. at 91-93 Grafton Street. In July 1860, their extensive range included the following: “square and long tissue Grenadines, printed Llama and long and square French and Paisley.”

Also on Grafton Street, the Shawl Warehouse at number 100 was run by James Forest and Sons. On Wednesday, May 31st, 1865, they advertised that they were now “showing their stock of French, Paisley, Norwich and every description of fashionable shawl.”

Shawls were often offered as prizes in raffles such as that run by the Phibsborough Art Union in July 1866 when Mrs Forman won a Paisley shawl in the raffle to benefit St. Peter’s Church, Phibsborough, Dublin.

Shawls were itemised in executors sales and indeed sometimes featured in court cases. The ‘Police Intelligence’ section of The Irish Times for August 2nd, 1870, notes that “Catherine Duffy was brought up in custody on remand, charged by Catherine Butterly with stealing a Paisley shawl from a room in a house at 38 City Quay. Sent to trial for City Sessions.”

Not all shawls were of the equal quality and the complicated history of the Paisley pattern reveals much about trade between India and Europe. The teardrop shaped pattern has it origins in Iran and the Kashmir region of India. By the nineteenth-century shawls were being made in the Scottish town of Paisley.

Cheaper copies were printed not woven and indeed the finest European shawls did not have as many threads as those imported from India. The woman in this carte-de-visite also wears some high-end accessories such as her parasol and leather goods. Her low-browed spoon bonnet is decorated with artificial flowers and ties in a large bow. This was also the height of fashion for the 1860s!

The photographer on this occasion was Thomas North also based on Grafton Street. The logo he used on his 1860s cards can be viewed here. The firm was at 71 Grafton Street from 1861 until at least 1900.

In the 1901 census, Thomas North is listed a living at 101 Rathmines Road. He was by then 73 years’ of age. Born in Hampshire, England, his second wife Mary Jane was 25 years’ his junior. Amongst those living in the household were two of his sons: the exotically name Theophilus Vese and Thomas Ernest whose occupation was listed as a ‘photographic artist.’ By the 1911 census, Thomas is no longer listed as a photographer and we can assume that the business did not last long after his father’s death.

Read Full Post »