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Photo identification


Pc Infield

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A relative of mine has sent me the attached photo of two of our ancestors.

There are two possibilities of who it might be,to find out we need to know if the photo is late 19th or early 20th century.

Anyone any ideas from the clothing?

image.jpeg

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http://www.phototree.com/gallery.asp?cat=cab&f0=Cabinet 

I would say late 1890s through into early 1900s. Don't forget they wore clothes until they wore out and not all followed fashion because of the cost involved so clothes lasted for ages. Any clue as to when the Taylor photographer was in business and where his place of business was? Another way of trying to date photos is to look at old trade directories.

Lyn  

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1879 Whites Directory:

Taylor A. & G. photographers, Furnival Chambers, Norfolk Street; W. Middleton, manager.

1881 Whites Directory:

Taylor A. & G. (William Middleton, managing partner), Furnival Chambers, numbers.- I 01 Norfolk Street, Sheffield & Glossop road, Sheffield.
 Scott Lane, Doncaster;
72 Manningham Lane,  Bradford;
Queen Anne  Buildings, New Briggate, Leeds

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Thanks very much everyone.

Interesting to see that A&G Taylor were around as early as 1879,as the lady I think is in the picture died aged 60 in 1880.

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I can’t recommend highly enough Robert Pols’ book ‘Family Photographs 1860-1945’.  He has a huge amount of useful information to offer.  Here are some quotations that might be helpful in this case.

 

“... it makes some sense to start with the picture as an object, taking into account such physical properties as dimensions, materials and surface finish”.  “Cabinet prints, mounted, measure approximately 4 ½ x 6 ½ inches (11.4 x 16.5 cm).  Some were produced in the latter part of the 1860s, but most prove to be from the 1870s or later.  ... they survived into the new century”.

 

“In the 1870s and 1880s the distance between camera and subjects tend to decrease.  People were often shown in three-quarter-length or half-length poses ... In the 1890s the close-up became enormously popular.  Head-and-shoulders, or even head-and-collar, portraits became the standard currency of the studio”.

 

 “The 1890s brought a change of emphasis in women’s clothing. ... the skirt ... settled into relative plainness, with attention being focused more on arms and shoulders.  Tight corsets with high necklines and small frills continued to hold sway, but it was sleeves that particularly marked the passing of the years.  First, in the late 1880s and early 1890s, came the narrow sleeve with a stand-up peak at the shoulder.  Then the peak grew rounder and fuller, taking in the upper arm, and ballooning out into the leg-of-mutton shape in the middle of the decade.”

 

“A note of warning must be sounded about dating from costume. ... Very broadly speaking, Londoners, city dwellers, the rich and the young might be expected to take up a new look more promptly than provincials, country folk, the poor and the old.  Having bought clothes in a new style, the less well-off would have to make them last longer than the relatively affluent.  Dating from costume therefore often leads us to no more than an earliest possible date.”

 

And so on, on these and other relevant topics.  The book is extensively illustrated, and extremely interesting – and I have no connection with the author or publisher!

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