Untitled (Portrait of Woman)
1850/99
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image: 9.2 × 5.7 cm (3 5/8 × 2 1/4 in.); Card: 10.6 × 6.2 cm (4 3/16 × 2 1/2 in.)
Classification
photography
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
189519
Art Historical Context
This delicate *Untitled (Portrait of Woman)* by G. C. Gilchrest, dating from between 1850 and 1899, captures the quiet elegance of its unnamed subject through the warm, luminous tones of an albumen print. Measuring just 9.2 × 5.7 cm on its card mount, this intimate portrait exemplifies the carte-de-visite format—a small, affordable photograph that revolutionized 19th-century portraiture, much like a calling card for the rising middle class. The albumen printing process, introduced in the 1850s, was photography's first commercially successful method for producing positive prints from glass neg...