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Thomas Stevenson; Robert Louis Stevenson; Margaret Isabella Stevenson (née Balfour)

1 of 33 portraits of Robert Louis Stevenson

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Thomas Stevenson; Robert Louis Stevenson; Margaret Isabella Stevenson (née Balfour)

by William Silvester Laroche
albumen carte-de-visite, September 1874
4 in. x 2 1/2 in. (103 mm x 63 mm) overall
Purchased, 2017
Primary Collection
NPG P2026

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In this carte-de-visite, Robert Louis Stevenson is shown seated with his parents on a rock formation in Laroche’s ‘Rock Studio’ on the Great Orme’s Head, a popular and well known attraction at the time in the seaside resort of Llandudno. The photograph was taken during the second half of a family holiday that Stevenson took with his parents to Chester in northwest England, and Barmouth and Llandudno in Wales, from 8-23 September 1874. At the time of the photograph, Stevenson was two months short of his twenty-fourth birthday and still studying law at the University of Edinburgh. His career as a writer was just beginning. His first paid essay, 'Roads', had appeared in the Portfolio in December 1873, 'Ordered South' in Macmillan's in May 1874, and his first essay for the Cornhill Magazine, 'Victor Hugo's Romances', in August 1874.
It is annotated on the reverse ‘The Stevenson family 1874’. The photographer’s stamp reads: ‘Photographed by WS Laroche The Rock Studio on the Great Ormes Head Address Ty Fry, Old Road, Llandudno. Negatives kept -- Copies can always be had This Carte Can Be Enlarged to Any Size and painted in Oil or Water Colors’.

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  • Place made and portrayed: United Kingdom: Wales (Laroche’s ‘Rock Studio’, Great Orme’s Head, Llandudno, Wales)

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Current affairs

Disraeli becomes Prime Minister for the second time, winning the general election and giving the Conservative party its first absolute majority since the 1840s.
Professional opportunities for women develop, with the opening of the London School of Economics to women, the foundation of the London School of Medicine for Women and the Women's Protective and Provident League.

Art and science

The Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc., including Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro organise an exhibition in Paris. Art critic Louis Leroy gives the group its name, criticising Monet's Impression, Sunrise for being merely an unfinished 'impression'. Impressionism becomes recognisable for techniques such as short, broken brushstrokes barely conveying forms, pure unblended colours, and an emphasis on the effects of light.

International

Britain annexes the Gold Coast, the region on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, now the independent nation of Ghana, following the second Ashanti war. The Treaty of Fomena secured massive financial reparations for the British, and strengthened their hold on the prosperous resources and trade routes in the regions. However, weakening the Ashanti tribe greatly destabilised the area.

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