Portraits from the first 100 years of photography
This press photograph doesn't have the year printed on it, but the caption on the back contains enough information to date it to July 4, 1916: National festival of the American colony at Berlin on the 4th of July, the day of the declaration of independence of America. The festival was held in the garden-plot... Continue Reading →
I found this cabinet card portrait for sale on eBay in England (Northamptonshire) in January of this year. Books are common props in 19th-century studio portraits, but titles are usually too blurry to read, even after scanning them at high resolution. In this case, the book is large enough that the title is easily readable... Continue Reading →
The unidentified young woman in this photograph is wearing a drop waist dress and a Marcel wave hairstyle, hallmarks of the flapper era of the 1920s. The photograph is about the size of a postcard, but it was printed on plain photo paper, rather than postcard stock. It came to me from a dealer in Pennsylvania who... Continue Reading →
This cabinet card portrait was made by a photographer named G.J. Maddison, whose studio was at 9 Norfolk Road in Dalston, which is in the London Borough of Hackney. (In 1938 Norfolk Road was renamed Cecilia Road.) I haven't found any information about Maddison yet. Among the boys, we can see tennis rackets and... Continue Reading →
Effie Hegermann-Lindencrone was born in Hillerød, Denmark, on August 27, 1860. This photo of her was taken in July 1879, a month before her nineteenth birthday: The carte-de-visite portrait was made at one of the two studios owned by photographer Lars Dinesen, either in Odense or in Fredericia: A year after the photo was... Continue Reading →
When I bought this photograph from a dealer in Arkansas, he and I both assumed the photo had originated in neighboring Texas, which is known as the Lone Star State. Well, it turns out there have been schools with the name "Lone Star" in several different states. The only additional information on the photo was... Continue Reading →
This photo postcard likely dates to the final years of Imperial Russia (1910-1917). It came to me from modern-day St. Petersburg. The back has some standard lettering but no personal information: I'm guessing that this family is at their dacha, or summer house in the country, because of the trees in the background. Their... Continue Reading →
The family in this photograph seems to be enjoying ample privacy and personal space at their secluded cottage. I searched online for pictures of old houses in the area around Forres, a town in northern Scotland, but didn't see one that looked exactly like this one. Maybe the house still stands, and maybe someone visiting... Continue Reading →
This small tintype portrays an unusual subject for early photography: a standing woman appears poised to brush the hair of a seated woman, who has a comb and other items in her lap. The standing woman is looking down and is slightly out of focus, while the seated woman is looking in the general direction... Continue Reading →
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