3-053-778 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Travelling Photographer, 1873. 'The blessed sun...is not above lending his aid to the harmless amusement of a child, who crows with glee and claps her little hands to see the dancing lights and shadows on the wall...It is very kind of the sun...to let his rays be employed for the mere innocent gratification of a young person's fancy. Here he is, helping the shilling photographer, with his box of chemical apparatus muffled in a cloth and propped on a pair of sticks, to catch the likeness of that pretty nursemaid's face, who stands, with her infant charge in her arms, a willing subject of this marvellous portrait-taking art ! It is for a soft word from the soldier, her gallant admirer, that Mary Ann consents to undergo this process, at his expense no doubt, that he may carry the photograph with him to barracks, and may there extol her charms in the hearing of envious comrades...The trick is performed, in a few minutes, by that cunning magician with his head in a bag, and Mary Ann's photographic portrait is handed over to Private Jack Robinson of the Royal Hampton Court Guards, who has already given her, by way of exchange, a likeness of his own martial figure, with the moustache in perfect trim'. Sign reads: 'Pictures 1 shilling each'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.