Victorian Parlor Collage

Looking to perk up your home this winter by redecorating? This Smithsonian Snapshot offers design inspiration from mid-19th century family photos, tintypes and Victorian parlor collages in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

In the 1840s, photography was introduced in the U.S. allowing a wider range of Americans to afford portraits and decorative images. The parlor became the center of middle-class domestic life, a place where objects such as painted tintypes and hand-colored photographs reflected a family’s aesthetics, status and history.

Collages like the one shown here are typical of the “scrapbook houses” made by young, middle-class girls in the 19th century, helping to prepare them for domestic life through designing the interior spaces that would one day convey their families’ status and values.