There is also the inevitable snapshotter, who neither asks permission nor cares whether it is granted or not. Such individuals seize an opportunity when few persons are about and take an illicit “negative” without risking a verbal one. The result has been that the photographs thus secured—all subject to copyright fees never collected—have been made use of for all kinds of purposes; they have turned up as blocks in newspapers and magazines, illustrations in books, and portrait postcards, besides being treasured in albums and framed as pictures.
Only very occasionally has a statement accompanied publication acknowledging the source from which the picture has originated—a circumstance that has more than once led to a curious and, so far as the artist is concerned, a somewhat vexatious contretemps.
It has so happened that we have had sometimes to send a member of our staff in quest of all the latest photographs of a favourite celebrity whose figure we have desired to remodel and bring up to date. Not infrequently has he brought back with him “photographs” purporting to have been taken from life, but which have been instantly recognised as reproductions of figures in the Exhibition.
A droll incident once occurred illustrative of this strange situation.
Many years ago, when Mr. Joseph Tussaud, under pressure of time and with very meagre material to go upon, produced a portrait of the late Pope Leo XIII directly after he was elevated to the papal chair, a certain well-known firm of photographers were at their wits’ end to obtain a portrait of the new Pontiff, and the novel idea suggested itself to them of arranging to borrow for a short time Madame Tussaud’s model, and therefrom obtain an original negative that might fulfil their requirements. This they accordingly did, and the object was achieved with remarkable success, for the portrait challenged detection. So lifelike was the picture that when it was placed upon the market beholders concluded that the Pope had sat for it.
Another firm of photographers, some time afterwards, and at great trouble and expense, succeeded in obtaining sittings from the Pope himself.
When the portrait taken from life appeared, and was compared with the photographs from the model, very grave doubt was raised as to whether the new portrait was really a good likeness, and many persons questioned its genuineness, much to the chagrin of the photographers who produced it.