Victorian Stereoscopy (1831-1886), Silvester Alfred, ‘Path of Life’

© The Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy
1858
Digital archival fine art print hand signed by Sir Brian May
Price on Request / photography@proud.co.uk
Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity

An unusual composition for Alfred Silvester, who spent most of his career producing stereo cards of much busier scenes, such as ‘National Sports, The Race-course’ and ‘The Road, the Rail, the Turf, the Settling Day’.

Dr Marcus Bunyan has noted: “Unlike painting, stereographs exclude things outside the frame. When the eyes come close to the stereoscope lenses and manage to bring the image into focus, they experience the sudden sensation of being in the picture.

Stereography was a new art. Silvester’s stereograph can be seen exploring its distinctive characteristics, the actuality of figures and its immersive three-dimensionality, to bring the Pre-Raphaelite painter’s composition to life in new ways.”

Some time in 1854, at 313 Oxford Street, the 'London Stereoscope Company' was born, and under the leadership of Managing Partner George Swan Nottage, by 1856 the company had changed its name, to 'The London Stereoscopic Company”' and finally in May 1859 assumed the name it was to retain for years to come: the 'London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company'.

Their business was selling stereo views and viewers to the public, and they were leaders in a boom – a craze - which swept England, Europe, and eventually the United States too, of stereo photographs of every conceivable subject, which, viewed by means of a stereoscope, presented scenes in life-like three dimensions. In a world which had never experienced Television, the Movies, or the Internet, this was understandably a revelation. In February 1856, the London Stereoscopic Company (LSC) advertised, in the Photographic Journal, 'The largest collection in Europe, upwards of 10,000' stereo views.

Much of the workings of the LSC in its early years is still shrouded in mystery, and the relationship it had with the pioneering photographers whose work it published remains unclear, but the company was evidently at a peak of production by the end of the 1850s; today’s collections of the finest cards from this period by James Elliott, Alfred Silvester, Mark Anthony, Charles Goodman, and many others always contain large numbers of examples bearing the familiar blindstamps of the LSC. In the 1860s, one of the LSC’s notable publications of stereo cards was a long series depicting the interior of the 1862 International Exhibition, in what is now Exhibition Road, South Kensington.

All Queen and Victorian fine art prints are selected and hand-signed by Sir Brian May, and are accompanied by a gallery certificate of authenticity, a Queen stereo card pack and a Lite Owl Viewer, designed by Brian May.

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