Item PR027257 - Anna Dawson at a door

Lafayette was a photography studio based in Dublin, Ireland. The studio was founded in 1880 by James Stack Lauder (1853-1923), using the professional name James Lafayette. Lafayette was run by Lauder and his brothers, George, Edmund, and William. All of them learned photography from their father, Edmund Stanley Lauder (1828-1891), who had started a successful daguerreotype studio in Dublin in 1853. The studio found success quickly as a portrait studio, winning awards and positive reviews for their work, and attracting the attention of the Irish aristocracy and the British Royal family. In 1887, James Lafayette photographed Queen Victoria and was granted a Royal Warrant as "Her Majesty's photographer in Dublin," an honour that was renewed by the next two British monarchs. As the studio grew, they opened new locations in Glasgow (1890), Manchester (1892), London (1897), and Belfast (1900). In 1898, the business was formally incorporated as Lafayette Ltd. The company continued to experience significant success, particularly because of their ties to newspapers and magazines, which frequently used their photographs in their pages. The company saw some hardship beginning in the 1930s and closed informally in 1952 (officially in 1962). The Dublin studio, sold in 1951 to Walter Pannell, a former Lafayette employee, still exists today. The Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery both hold significant collections of Lafayette negatives.