Figure004

Citation

John Jabez Edwin Mayall (American, 1810-1901). “Two Young Women.” circa 1846. Gregory Fried Collection. Mirror of Race, 11 Feb. 2021, mirrorofrace.bc.edu/items/show/238. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

Title

Two Young Women

Subject

Unknown

Creator

John Jabez Edwin Mayall (American, 1810-1901)

Date

circa 1846

Type

Portrait

Identifier

Figure004

Rights Holder

Gregory Fried Collection

Original Format

Daguerreotype

Physical Dimensions

Half Plate (4.25 x 5.5 inches)

Factual Commentary

John Jabez Edwin Mayall operated a studio in Philadelphia in the 1840s, until he moved permanently to London in 1846. This portrait is probably from his last years in Philadelphia, around 1845 or 1846. It can be identified as a Mayall by the distinctive inlaid, octagonal table, which he employed as a studio prop in Philadelphia. Mayall used this table in a portrait of Albert Sands Southworth, the partner of Josiah Johnsohn Hawes, who together operated the famed Southworth and Hawes photography studio in Boston, MA. That image may be seen in Sotheby’s April 27, 1999 auction catalogue, The David Feigenbaum Collection of Southworth & Hawes and Other 19th-Century Photographs, sale 7295 (New York: Sotheby’s, 1999), p. 46.

Mayall was a highly skilled photographer, with a good eye for light and composition; he exhibited at the London Fair in 1851. In London, he quickly became a popular photographer among the aristocracy and upper classes. An example is this portrait below of Lord Brougham (1778-1868), a British nobleman and politician who was an early and vigorous advocate for eradication of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery in the British empire. Notice the announcement at the bottom of the back of the card: “All Mr. Mayall’s productions are published by Marion & Co., 22 & 23 Soho Square, London W”; Mayall sold prints of such famous people to the public. Mayall’s success as a portraitist to the upper echelons of British society won him an invitation to take portraits of Queen Victoria and the royal family. He subsequently made a considerable fortune mass-marketing these portraits, such as this one of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Beatrice (1857-1944).
J. J. E. Mayall, Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1868), Gregory Fried collection. J. J. E. Mayall, H.R.H. The Princess Beatrice,” carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1862), Gregory Fried collection.

Interpretive Commentary

What constitutes “whiteness”? John Jabez Edwin Mayall was one of the most technically and artistically accomplished of the early photographers. His portraits would have commanded high prices, and the two young women posed here, who look alike enough to be sisters, come from the upper class of Philadelphia society. We can see this in the expensive clothes they wear, their elaborately curled hair, and in their jewelry ― the young woman on the left holds a pencil on a long gold chain.

But wealth alone is not enough to mark whiteness. Is whiteness marked by skin tone or facial features or style of hair? Or does it also involve more subtle social cues? Whiteness in mid-19th century America was a virtually indispensible qualification for access to the higher reaches of society. Where do we see this in what is an otherwise normal portrait? Does the whiteness of these young woman lie also in their self-possession, the ease of their unusually relaxed and intimate portrait, in which they casually lock arms, one of them smiling gently at us? It is a portrait like this that reminds us that most early photography was made for the clients closest friends and family. What characteristics did this one seek to convey, and to what extent can we read the privileges and power of whiteness even in such an image? Consider that Mayall was successful enough to become an official photographer of Queen Victoria in England. Mayall produced carte-de-visite portraits of the queen and her family for sale to the public, such as the one below of the queen and the children morning her husband and their father, Prince Albert (1819-1861).

royalfamilymed
J.J.E. Mayall, The Royal Family Mourning Prince Albert, carte de visite (circa 1862), collection of Gregory Fried

The royal family was one of the touchstones for what it meant to be white in that time. What qualities would Mayall have had to be able to convey in his portraiture to have this degree of success, and how do these features differ from the photographs of people excluded from the category of white?

Alternative Title

Collection

Mirror of Race