Genre:

Advertisement, Spoof

Subjects:

Photography, Technology, Chemistry, Politics, Language

    Announcing his newly opened 'Photographic Establishment at Messrs. Blackwood's, London and Edinburgh', 'A. W. Kinglake' (the historian of the Crimean War Alexander W Kinglake) invites 'persons holding conspicuous public position' to his establishment 'for producing life-like resemblances in small or large, either on the scale of the popular cartes-de-visite, or as magnified by the solar and osy-hydrogen apparatus'. The advertisement reflects Kinglake's admiration of Fitzroy J H Somerset (1st Baron Raglan) and hostility to Emperor Napoleon III of France, and his desire to represent them in favourable and poor lights respectively. After describing his representation of the 'leading incidents in the careers of his illustrious sitters, he describes his dissolving views (including '"The Entente Cordiale" and "La Gloire Francaise"', for which he expects great demand in France), and announces his invention of a process for 'taking portraits which entirely dispenses with natural light'. This process enables the subject to appear in shade (notably Napoleon III) or 'under the effect of couleur de rose (notably Raglan and 'other English Generals'). He also announces his invention and processes which clearly reflect his hostility to the French: a 'new Anti-Gallic Acid' which brings out the 'lights and darks' of sitters and his 'stock of double-distilled Gall-odium'.