Elizabeth Thompson and ‘Patsy’ Cornwallis West as Carte-de-visite Celebrities

Abstract

This essay places Elizabeth Thompson's (later Lady Butler, 1846–1933) sensational success at the 1874 Royal Academy exhibition, and the negotiations over the sale of copyrights of her work, in the context of an art world being reconfigured by the commercialisation and the commodification of images, including those by and of women. It shows how photography – in particular, carte-de-visite portraits of artists – played an important role in this burgeoning market, and in the new laws required to regulate it. It uses the later example of Mary (‘Patsy’) Cornwallis West (née Fitzpatrick, 1858–1920) to illuminate Thompson's unease at being photographed; the confusion concerning copyright laws and the sale of photographic portraits to the public; and the ambivalent fascination of the time with photographs of women celebrities as ‘professional beauties’.