Figure 1.--This was a portrait of a class at the Lycée de Marseille in 1909-10. Notice that there were sopecial mounts prepared for the school by the studio. As with many of these new style mounts, the mount itseld was larger than the classic 19th century mounts, but much of the area of the larger mounts was just the size of the mount and not the actual photograph. This cabinet card is a good example.

We do note nunerous cabinet cards in the early-20th century as well as a few CDVs. The new style mounts did not suddenly appear in 1900 and the classic style did not disappear in 1899. But the turn of the century is the point at which the classic mounts had begun to decline and the new style mounts began to become the dominant cabinet card mount. And we see similar new style mount styles in the early-20th century that we see in America and other countries. The examples we have found so far are the larger sized mounts. The mounts were larger, but not always the actual photographic images. The 1911 Niort cabinet card on the previous page is a good example. The 1909-10 Lycée de Marseille here is another examople (figure 1). We have not yet found the smaller-sized cabinet cards we see in America at the time, but the number of French cabinet cards we have found are very small and we do not yet have a valid sample. This is especially the case of the dated cards we like to include in this section. Unlike the classic 19th century cabinet cards, the styling and color of the mounts were different than many of the American mounts we have archived. We continue to see French cabinet cards into the inter-War era, although they were decining in popularity. We see cabinet cards being done as late as 1940. They disappeared earlier in other countries. We do not see them in France after World War II.

Created: 3:29 PM 10/26/2018
Last updated: 3:29 PM 10/26/2018