Publication: The American Backmark

[Michael Pritchard]

This book organizes over 1,300 different carte-de-visite back variants found into 40 categories such as Photo Studio, Animals, Humans, Transportation, Patriotic, Aesthetic and Highly Artistic. William C. Darrah, in his book Cartes de Visite in Nineteenth Century Photography, mentioned that no one had ever attempted to catalog all the known artistic designs.  Author Mark Chalabala took up this challenge and over the past 10 years has flipped well over 250,000 CDVs; cataloging the designs used on CDV's from 1860 to 1890. This collective is the culmination of those efforts and presents not only the images, but his commentary regarding the designs as well. This book was constructed to present the 'story' of artistic designs from "inspiration to installation".  It should appeal to collectors of vintage photography, graphic arts and early advertising. If you've ever looked at the back of a CDV and wondered about where the artwork came from, this is your book.  Now who is up to to the challenge of doing the same for UK cartes? Buy direct from the author here: tinyurl.com/acbdgh4