Historical Portrait
Smith, Bessie, portrait photograph
Archive record
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in.
About this photograph
This glass plate negative was created by Arnold Genthe, a photographer who worked in the pictorialist style and maintained a San Francisco studio from 1896 to 1911 before relocating to New York. The Library of Congress acquired approximately 20,000 items from his studio after his death in 1942.
The 1906 date places this portrait during Genthe's San Francisco period, though no further information about the sitter or the circumstances of the sitting has been recorded. The title identifies the subject as Bessie Smith, but without additional documentation, details of her identity remain unknown.
The negative is part of a collection that includes several thousand studio portraits alongside Genthe's better-documented work photographing San Francisco's Chinatown, dance subjects, and early color autochromes.
Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.
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