CDV – PHOTOGRAPHIC BUSINESS CARD – ABRAHAM BOGARDUS – NY – IMAGE OF SARAH BERHARDT
 Carte de visite 4 1/8 x 2 ½. Business card for famed NY photographer Abraham Bogardus. Card announcing the moving  to his Sixth Ave address. Tipped in photograph of Sarah Bernhardt. Probable ca. 1880, the time of Bernhardt’s first American tour.
Bogardus was by one of the most predominate photographers of the time . Bogardus regarded Bernhardt as a crowning subject and choose her to be used in his studio announcement. .

A descendent of the Dutch settlers of the Hudson Valley, Abraham Bogardus belonged to the pioneer generation of photographers, taking his initial lessons in the creation of daguerreotypes from G. W. Prosch in in 1846. He immediately opened a gallery at the corner of Greenwich and Barclay streets in Manhattan. His professional success prospered in the paper era, when he popularized the carte de visite (cdv) in New York City, making his second studio on Broadway and Franklin Streets a mecca for those wishing to capture their images. In the wake of the Civil War, Bogardus' fame, due primarily to the success of the cdv, earned him election as the first president of the National Photographic Association in 1869, a position he held until 1875.
Sarah Bernhardt  and her troupe departed from Le Havre for America in  October 1880, arriving in New York.  On  November 8 in New York City, she performed Scribe's Adrienne Lecouvreur at Booth's Theatre before an audience which had paid a top price of $40 for a ticket, an enormous sum at the time. She received a thunderous ovation, and made 27 curtain calls. Although she was welcomed by theatre-goers, she was entirely ignored by New York high society, who considered her personal life scandalous.
Exhibits some use and wear, overall fine. ph 321