(Date & Restore) 19th Century Love Locket Photographs Laurie & Eleanor Hobbs

[QueenoftheWest]

Hi everyone,

After admiring the excellent work of the RootsChat photo restorers, I am appealing for help with my own family photos.

My great-aunt passed a little more than a year ago and amongst her possessions I found this beautiful gold heart-shaped locket. I'm not very good at recognising antiques so I initially thought she had bought it fairly recently. However, I looked inside and I found photographs of my great-great-grandparents, Laurie & Eleanor Hobbs!

This was very exciting as prior to this I only had photos of them post-1901. Unfortunately, the photos are very small so the quality isn't great and Laurie's photograph is missing the bottom part but beggars can't be choosers!

I have attached two versions; an edited version for the daters and the originals for the restorers (I read on another post that restorers prefer originals). I did the restore myself but my photo editing skills are rudimentary at best and I have no idea how to improve quality or go about fixing that missing part under Laurie.

For the daters:
Laurie (1856-1936) m. Eleanor (1857-1956) in 1881.

They were both born, raised and died in London.

I don't know whether the photos were taken at the same time but they are not printed on the same paper and Eleanor's photo is larger than Laurie's. It is hard to tell but I'm pretty sure she is wearing a locket in the photo. However, it is not the same as my locket as the chain is too short. I have a photo of Eleanor's daughter, my great-grandmother Julia wearing my locket in 1910 so she must have passed it down. There is more than one locket but I don't know what happened to the other one. I looked up my locket and I found similar ones from the 1890s but Laurie and Eleanor look far too young so I believe she might have transferred them over. There were actually two photos of Eleanor inside; one young and one taken in the early 1900s of her in her 40s. There is nothing on the back which would help dating and I can't take them out of the locket again to scan as the last time I did a big chunk came off Eleanor's photo... oops.

Side note: does anyone know how these locket photos were done? Did people use photos they already had and have a smaller version made or did they have new photos taken specifically for the locket?

Thank you so much for any help you can give me. I really appreciate it!

Kind regards,

Queenie 

[Ian Nelson]

not sure if it's much improved. cheers, Ian

[japeflakes]

A few goes

[McGroger]

Queenie, for best results for the restores could you scan them separately at higher resolutions, please. You're allowed to post a file size of up to 500 kb and yours is less than 29 kb so it gives restorers very little to work on. Just want to do the best for you.
Peter

[jim1]

Although we would like to be able to date heads unfortunately we can't
so no idea about him.
She looks to be wearing a blouse rather than a bodice so into the 1910's
& possibly up to the early 20's.
To answer your other question photographers did have special lenses that would
take small photos, commonly called button cameras.
Whether one was used for either or both of these is impossible to say.

[QueenoftheWest]

Thank you to Ian and japeflakes for your restores. I really appreciate it 

Peter, is this better? I went back to the original scans and separated them + blew them up.

Thanks, Jim. I know this was taken before 1901 as she had her photo replaced so it seems that her dress has worn away and the bodice is no longer visible which is a shame 

On a separate note, does anyone have an opinion on how old they are? I feel like Eleanor looks around 20 and Laurie maybe mid to late 20s?

Queenie

[McGroger]

Those are better scans, thanks, Queenie. Unfortunately it's still difficult to tell what's damage and what's detail. I've had a go, but please be aware that, because of the amount of damage, these are as much interpretations as restores.
Peter

[QueenoftheWest]

Those are better scans, thanks, Queenie. Unfortunately it's still difficult to tell what's damage and what's detail. I've had a go, but please be aware that, because of the amount of damage, these are as much interpretations as restores.
Peter

Wow, Peter. Thank you so much! You did an incredible job with what you had to work with. Laurie is particularly great, I know it is just an interpretation of what he was wearing but it looks so much better than an empty space. I had a go at adding an outfit and it looked terrible, haha. You certainly put me to shame!

Queenie 

[Iria]

A Restore From me also
Regards Iria