Carte de visite photograph of a French risqué print, published and sold in Melbourne around 1870.

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 100 x 63 mm (mount); verso with the imprint of ‘W. J. Norman, Looking Glass & Picture Frame Manufacturer, 94 & 170 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. Looking Glasses Re-silvered, Frames Re-gilded. Great variety of Photographs’; some very light foxing to the print, more pronounced on the verso.

We have previously handled cartes de visite with Melbourne merchant W. J. Norman’s back mark, including portraits of Australian Aborigines and celebrities of the day. The State Library of Victoria, for example, holds a carte de visite of the popular British actor Charles Mathews with the Norman back mark (PCLTA 2168 F. 1), although its catalogue record incorrectly attributes the photograph to Norman, who was in fact, of course, the publisher and retailer of the image, not its maker.

Norman also published a series of six risqué subjects (we have previously sold an entire set), which were photographic reproductions of saucy prints lithographed by Gustave Barry (fl. 1848-1882) after Philippe-Jacques Linder (1835-1914). These would be considered fairly innocuous by most of us today in terms of their sexual content; yet there can be little doubt that they would have shocked the sensibilities of Melbourne’s conservative society of the time. For this reason, they provide an interesting little case study of what publishers in colonial Melbourne could get away with, as well as illustrating how outré material of this type was marketed.