9.00 USD
This happy model just may have been the first spokesperson ever for a Reading is ... er, Enjoyable campaign. Such a wonderful image, with such a great message.
The photographer was Professor Edward (often called Édouard) Stebbing (18??-1915), a prolific photographer, inventor, and writer of wonderful articles full of technical details about photographic techniques. Although Wikipedia does not have a page for him, their disambiguation note states that he was "active in Paris between 1890 and 1910."
Professor Stebbing was an extremely prolific portraitist, who operated a studio out of Boulevard des Italiens et 30 Rue Grammont, Paris, France and had a talent for toying with the development and printing processes in a way that particularly lent itself to brilliant coloration. He is a bit of a mystery man, as we have found quite a number of references to him pertaining to photography of the period, but no biography as of yet. We don't know what he was a professor of, but it is clear from references in the photographic journals of his time that he was well respected by the community of photographers.
Presumably because of his studio address, he is often called a French photographer, but we do know that Stebbing is a common enough English name, that in the 1870s he was a regular contributor to the British Journal of Photography (in fact, he was that magazine's "Paris correspondent" for a time), and he made regular trips to England. Also, in writing about him and quoting him, the journal referred to him as "Professor" and not "Professeur," we suspect he was an expatriate Englishman who made his home in Paris. We also know from articles in the British journal that he was an active participant in meetings of the Photographic Society of France.
Also, like so many of those early photographers, Stebbing was an inventor. In those days, many photographers, those who were more than dabblers, were inventors out of necessity, as it was only through experimentation with the vast number of chemicals and broad (and constantly "newfangled") varieties of equipment, that advances in their art were accomplished. Stebbing was actually the inventor of the first "roll film" camera in 1883, which by 1887 was retailing for about twelve dollars. Below, there is a link to the George Eastman House Technology Archive where you can learn more about that camera and enjoy an image of it as well.
http://www.geh.org/fm/brownie2/htmlsrc/mS810500001_ful.html
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This fun and sexy card was postmarked in November of 1905, but as the back was undivided had probably been published no later than 1904. Some very minor wear on edges and corners. Please examine our high res scans for detail.
Postage is for first class shipping in a secure photo mailer, and we happily combine shipping on all paper goods. If you purchase two cards, the price is the same as for a single card, and when you purchase three or more cards from us at the same time, your shipping will be entirely free, except for international orders which, due to the costs of international shipping will still be charged one card's shipping fees on orders of three or more. We do not charge for insurance or shipping materials, and as of the date of this listing are still charging below our overall cost on shipping.
And please come visit our blog at:
redpoulaine.blogspot.com
where we post biographical and historical tidbits, images of cards and photographs for sale, some already sold but remembered fondly, related images of historical interest and sometimes even images of items that have not yet arrived in the shop, but that are expected to arrive soon, as well as coupon codes, links to other related sites, and more!