Portraits of twelve British poets from Friedrich Bruckmann’s Portrait-Collection

Munich, Berlin, and London: Friedrich Bruckmann, 1870. Set of cabinet cards featuring photographic reproductions of twelve portraits of celebrated British poets, issued as part of “Bruckmann’s Portrait-Collection” by German art publisher Friedrich Bruckmann. The portraits range from the seventeenth century (Milton, Dryden) through the eighteenth (Addison, Pope, Goldsmith, Burns) to the nineteenth (Byron, Shelley, Scott, Moore, Wordsworth, and Tennyson). Although the format is nearly identical, the trimmed Shelley and Wordsworth cards were issued by Bruckmann’s former employee Theodor Stroefer at his New York City publishing house, Stroefer & Kirchner, still under the title of “Bruckmann’s Collection.” A compelling artifact of nineteenth-century literary celebrity. Twelve red-bordered albumen-print cabinet cards, captioned beneath image, measuring between 6.75 and 6.25 inches high and 4.5 and 4.25 inches wide. All cards except Milton trimmed at lower edge, Shelley trimmed at sides as well, all edges of Wordsworth trimmed.