S8, 803-02, 1890s, Cabinet Card, Lillian Russell (1860-1922) Stage Actress

Family Tree (see last image). Lillian Russell (born Helen Louise Leonard; December 4, 1860 or 1861 - June 6, 1922) was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, praised for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence; a reviewer referred to her as the most beautiful actress of the legitimate stage. Russell was born in Clinton, Iowa, but raised in Chicago.

Her parents separated when she was 18, and she moved to New York with her mother. She began to perform professionally by 1879, singing for Tony Pastor and playing roles in comic opera, including Gilbert and Sullivan works. Composer Edward Solomon created roles in several of his comic operas for her in London. For many years, she was the foremost singer of operettas and musical theatre in the United States, performing continuously through the end of the 19th century.

In 1899, she joined the Weber and Fields' Broadway Music Hall, where she starred for five years. After 1904, she began to have vocal difficulties and switched to dramatic roles.

Russell was married four times, but her longest relationship was with Diamond Jim Brady, who supported her extravagant lifestyle for four decades. In later years, she wrote a newspaper column, advocated women's suffrage, was a popular lecturer, and contributed to the passage of the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924. Lillian Russell's friend Diamond Jim Brady was a significant owner of thoroughbred racehorses and may have influenced her decision to become involved in the sport.

In August 1906, her press agent announced she had acquired eight colts sired by the New Zealand stallion Carbine for her new thoroughbred racing stable. She competed under the nom de course Mr. Clinton with racing colors to be navy blue with a white star. Russell suffered apparently minor injuries on the return trip, which, however, led to complications, and she died after ten days of illness at her home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Thousands of people lined the route of her military funeral, attended by many actors and politicians; President Harding sent a wreath that was set atop her casket.

She is interred in her family's private mausoleum in the Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Films: Lillian Russell (1906 short) as herself La Tosca (1911 short) How to Live 100 Years (1913 Kinemacolor short) as herself Popular Players Off the Stage (1913 short documentary) as herself Potted Pantomimes (1914) Wildfire (1915). A nationally known graphic artist and publisher of lithographs, he had retired from active participation in Sarony & Major in 1858. He departed for Europe craving artistic stimulation. He visited the ateliers of Paris and Brussels, haunted the studios of London. Yet what most galvanized his imagination was photography, an art practiced by his brother, Oliver, in Scarborough. After a thorough grounding in the chemistry of wet plate developing and enlarging, and instruction in optics, he opened his studio in Birmingham, England, specializing in carte de visite portraits, and occasional celebrity pictures.

Sarony's business plan in 1866 was to establish a photographic supply office in New York City with portraiture as an ancillary concern. To this end he brought with him from England the ingenious Alfred S. Campbell, holder of several photographic equipment patents. Sarony also brought his brother's studio rest (Napoleon Sarony patented an improvement in 1868), a retouching frame, and albumin paper.

Having witnessed the success of E. Anthony as suppliers of the trade, Sarony dreamt of equivalent wealth and influence. Sarony & Company located at 680 Broadway. Card size: 4.25" x 6.5". Was a style of photograph which was widely used for photographic portraiture after 1870.

It consisted of a thin photograph mounted on a card typically measuring 108 by 165 mm (4+1? The carte de visite was displaced by the larger cabinet card in the 1880s. In the early 1860s, both types of photographs were essentially the same in process and design.

Both were most often albumen prints, the primary difference being the cabinet card was larger and usually included extensive logos and information on the reverse side of the card to advertise the photographer's services. However, later into its popularity, other types of papers began to replace the albumen process.

Despite the similarity, the cabinet card format was initially used for landscape views before it was adopted for portraiture. Some cabinet card images from the 1890s have the appearance of a black-and-white photograph in contrast to the distinctive sepia toning notable in the albumen print process. These photographs have a neutral image tone and were most likely produced on a matte collodion, gelatin or gelatin bromide paper.

Sometimes images from this period can be identified by a greenish cast. Gelatin papers were introduced in the 1870s and started gaining acceptance in the 1880s and 1890s as the gelatin bromide papers became popular.

Matte collodion was used in the same period. A true black-and-white image on a cabinet card is likely to have been produced in the 1890s or after 1900. The last cabinet cards were produced in the 1920s, even as late as 1924. Owing to the larger image size, the cabinet card steadily increased in popularity during the second half of the 1860s and into the 1870s, replacing the carte de visite as the most popular form of portraiture. The cabinet card was large enough to be easily viewed from across the room when typically displayed on a cabinet, which is probably why they became known as such in the vernacular. Whatever the name, the popular print format joined the photograph album as a fixture in the late 19th-century Victorian parlor. VG-VG/EX (edge & corner wear).

Please see scans for actual condition. (images 3,4 & 5 are for reference only). This Cabinet Card would make a great addition to your collection or as a Gift (nice for Framing).

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