Signed studio portrait of actress Alice Lingard. Melbourne, 1876.

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 105 x 63 mm (mount), recto signed by the sitter in ink across the studio imprint in the lower margin ‘Alice Lingard’; verso with ‘Bardwell, Melbourne’ printed in gold ink, along with the wet stamp of the ‘William Horace Lingard Comedy Company’; in fine condition.

English actress Alice Dunning Lingard (1847-1897) toured Australia in 1876 as part of her husband William Lingard’s comedy company. Her sister Harriet, who used the stage name “Dickie Lingard”, was also a performer in the company. The two sisters had already met with success in the United States, and it is interesting to note that in the Australian press they were referred to as “Anglo-American” or simply “American”. Both were renowned for their beauty; one Melbourne critic remarked after seeing their performance at the Theatre Royal, that ‘… it would be difficult to find in any theatre outside the large cities of the world five more beautiful women than are Miss Alice Dunning Lingard, Miss Dickie Lingard, Miss Eleanor Carey, Miss Blanche Stammers, and Miss Nita Gerald….’

This promotional carte de visite, signed by Alice, almost certainly dates to around the start of the Lingards’ tour in February 1876. It would have been sold as a souvenir, most likely to a patron at the Theatre Royal or visitor to Bardwell’s studio at the top end of Collins Street.