Visiting Cards: A Photographic Record of 19th Century Peruvian Society

This type of carte de visite included depictions of popular figures like the "water seller," the "fruit seller," etc., and also encompassed images of inhabitants of the Amazon and the Andes, usually represented in a stereotypical, anonymous, and exoticized manner.

The photographer Villalba was of possible Bolivian origin and was active in the southern Andean region towards the end of the 19th century.

The visiting cards also reflected contemporary issues. In response to the political climate, American photographer Richardson produced photomontages featuring the faces of the president and other politicians, using this technique as a form of critique. This satirical approach landed him in jail, where he spent Christmas in 1871.

Although this style of dress had already been supplanted by European fashion, "las tapadas" were emblematic of Lima, which is why these photos were in demand.

We have portraits of historical figures from the second half of the 19th century in business card format.

This post-mortem photograph was taken at the wake of the President of the Republic Miguel San Román by Eugene Maunoury who, as already mentioned, was a correspondent for Casa Nadar in Paris where he sent the photos.

With the red "N" feature in the lower right corner

In the visiting card format, image mosaics could also be generated for advertisements or to generate attractive images for customers. The mosaic made it possible for the buyer to see multiple characters together in a single image.

The photographer who patented the visiting card in 1854. He worked on the “mosaic card”, an exercise that consists of grouping diverse portraits, this was useful to collect, for example, many photos of important personalities in a single image.