Short answer: A carte de visite is a small photo on card, about 6 by 10 cm, popular from 1860 to about 1910; a cabinet card is larger, about 11 by 16.5 cm, made from 1866 to about 1914. Square corners and thin card point to the 1860s; rounded corners, thick dark mounts and gilt bevelled edges to the 1870s and later.
Last updated: 2 November 2026. Every year on this page was checked against the museums, archives and photo-history sources listed at the bottom.
Before snapshots, almost every family photo was taken in a studio and pasted onto card. The two most common formats, the carte de visite and the cabinet card, look alike at first sight, but the card they are mounted on changed in known ways. That makes the mount, not the picture, your best clock.
Tell them apart
| Format | Mount size | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Carte de visite | About 6 by 10 cm (2.5 by 4 inches), with a print of about 5 by 9 cm | Patented in France in 1854, in England from 1857, a collecting craze from 1860; made until about 1910 |
| Cabinet card | About 11 by 16.5 cm (4.25 by 6.5 inches), with a print of about 10 by 14 cm | 1866 to about 1914; waning after 1900 |
| Other sizes | Boudoir, imperial, promenade and panel cards | Larger variants of the cabinet card, same period |
The size of a carte de visite hardly changed over fifty years, so it does not date a card by itself. The mount does.
The mount: thickness, corners, colour and edges
- Thickness. Compare several cards from the same family: the thinner the mount, the earlier the photograph.
- Corners. Cartes de visite from the early 1860s usually have square corners; rounded corners came in during the 1870s.
- Colour. Cream mounts were always common. Dark mounts in black, dark brown, green or burgundy appeared in the 1880s and 1890s.
- Edges. From the 1880s cabinet card mounts sometimes had bevelled edges, often finished in gold or silver.
- Decoration. Plain early mounts gave way to fancier borders, printed designs and larger studio names over the years.
The print and the back
- The print. Most cards before about 1895 carry an albumen print: thin paper with a purple or brownish tone and cream-coloured whites, prone to curling. Later prints look more neutral.
- The photographer. The name and address on the front or back lead to a studio that was open only for certain years, and an address can narrow it further if the studio moved. For Belgium, the FOMU Directory of Belgian Photographers lists some 8,600 photographers active from 1839 to 1914.
- A tax stamp. On American cards, a revenue stamp on the back dates the photo to between August 1864 and August 1866.
The people
Clothing helps within the range the card gives you. Crinolines and wide skirts belong to the 1850s and 1860s, bustles to the 1880s, and the hourglass corset and big sleeves to the 1890s. Very high collars point to the early 1900s. For the twentieth-century cards, see The 1900s (1900 to 1909) and The 1910s (1910 to 1919).
Quick checklist
- Measure the mount: about 6 by 10 cm (carte de visite) or 11 by 16.5 cm (cabinet card)?
- Corners square (1860s) or rounded (1870s or later)?
- Mount cream, or dark with gilt bevelled edges (1880s and 1890s)?
- Print purple-brown with cream whites (albumen, before about 1895)?
- Photographer's name and address: look up the studio's years.
Try the free photo date tool
Not sure yet? The free photo date tool asks what you can see (the material, the colour, the edge, the back, a printed year) and turns your answers into a period, with the source behind each year. It needs no account and uploads nothing. For digital photos and scans, read when was this photo taken.
Once you know the year
Write the year in soft pencil on the back, and put it at the start of the file name when you scan it. Then hang it with its date in your palace: in The Memory Palace each photo gets its year, the people in it and the story that goes with it, in a room the family can walk through together. You can start your palace for free.
Date a photo from another decade
Start from the overview: when was this photo taken, or the seven general clues in how to tell when an old photo was taken. All guides on old photos:
- The 1900s (1900 to 1909)
- The 1910s (1910 to 1919)
- The 1920s (1920 to 1929)
- The 1930s (1930 to 1939)
- The 1940s (1940 to 1949)
- The 1950s (1950 to 1959)
- The 1960s (1960 to 1969)
- The 1970s (1970 to 1979)
- The 1980s (1980 to 1989)
- The 1990s (1990 to 1999)
- Polaroid and instant photos
- Slides: Kodachrome and Ektachrome
- Colour prints and negatives
Sources
- National Science and Media Museum, How to spot a carte de visite: blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/find-out-when-a-photo-was-taken-identify-a-carte-de-visite
- National Science and Media Museum, How to spot a cabinet card: blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/find-out-when-a-photo-was-taken-identify-a-cabinet-card
- University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections (Nicolette Bromberg), Dating photographs by format and technology: content.lib.washington.edu/imls/kcsnapshots/documents/DatingPhotos.pdf
- National Library of Australia, Finding and dating photographs (formats, clothing and grooming by decade): library.gov.au/learn/adults/lifelong-learning/finding-and-dating-photographs