c. 1870\'s Burlesque Performer Mary Pitt Albumen Cabinet Photo by J Guerney & Son For Sale

DATE: c. 1860\'sPHOTOGRAPHER: J. Gurney & Son (see bio below)SUBJECT: Mary Pitt (see bio below)PROCESS: AlbumenSIZE: Board measures 4.25\" x 6.5\" and mounted photo measures 3.875\" x 5.75\"CONDITION: See photosSHIPPING: Shipping cost is non-negotiable, please consider it when offerding/buying.COMBINED SHIPPING: Yes, I do combine shipping. Additional shipping per item is 20% of the lower shipping cost [For example, if 2 items are purchased that have a $30 and $10 shipping cost each, the combined shipping cost becomes $32 for the 2 items]. If offerding/buying more than 1 item, please wait for an invoice with combined shipping before Gurney & Son was a prominent New York photographic studio active from 1860 to 1874. The firm joined Jeremiah Gurney, an early American daguerreotypist and established Broadway photographer, with his son Benjamin P. Gurney. Operating from a purpose-built gallery at 707 Broadway, the studio represented a transition from the daguerreotype era into the widespread commercial use of paper photographs, including albumen prints, cartes de visite, cabinet portraits, enlarged photographic portraits, and stereographs.The studio became particularly associated with portraits of prominent Americans and visiting international figures, as well as military officers, literary celebrities, clergy, politicians, and theatrical performers. Its portrait of Charles Dickens, made during the author’s American reading-tour period in 1867, became one of the best-known images produced at the gallery. The firm also photographed Civil War subjects and documented the 1864 New York Metropolitan Fair, creating stereographs of its exhibition galleries, displays, and participants in support of the United States Sanitary Commission.J. Gurney & Son combined the formal clarity of earlier studio portraiture with the expanding commercial ambitions of 1860s photography. Its images generally emphasize sharp focus, carefully arranged poses, painted or neutral backdrops, and a polished presentation intended for collectors and public circulation. The business dissolved in 1874, after which its Broadway premises passed to photographer José María Mora. Today, photographs bearing the J. Gurney & Son imprint remain important documents of New York’s photographic trade, Civil War-era visual culture, and the celebrity portrait market of the nineteenth Pitt was a nineteenth-century British stage performer, active in London and New York during the late 1860s. Contemporary theatrical records identify her as an actress and singer, particularly in burlesque, extravaganza, and musical adaptations. Surviving sources do not appear to establish her birth and death dates or provide a detailed account of her life outside the theatre.Pitt made a documented appearance at London’s Adelphi Theatre on September 2, 1868, when she played Diana Vernon in a four-scene version of *Rob Roy; or, Auld Lang Syne*. The programme also assigned her a duet, “Forlorn and Broken-hearted,” with W. H. Eburne, indicating that singing formed a clear part of her work as a performer.By January 1869, Pitt had joined the Elise Holt Burlesque Company at the newly opened Waverley Theatre in New York. The company presented comic musical burlesques based on familiar literary, historical, and classical subjects. In Henry J. Byron’s *Ivanhoe*, Pitt played Prince John, a character part that reflected the period’s frequent use of women in male roles. She later appeared as Juno in the burlesque *Paris*.In May 1869 Pitt played Psyche in William Brough’s *Pygmalion and Galatea*, staged at the Waverley Theatre. She was also credited in the company’s revival of *Ixion*. These productions place her within the lively Anglo-American burlesque tradition of the period, in which performers combined spoken comedy, singing, parody, costume spectacle, and gender-crossing roles.