Historical Portrait
Unidentified man, seated at his easel, portrait photograph
Archive record
1 negative : nitrate ; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
About this photograph
Arnold Genthe photographed an unidentified man seated at an easel in 1896. The negative, measuring four by five inches or smaller, is part of the Library of Congress collection.
This portrait dates to the year Genthe opened his San Francisco studio. He worked in the soft-focus pictorialist style and maintained that studio until 1911, when he moved to New York.
The sitter's identity is not recorded. Genthe's studio work included several thousand portraits over the course of his career. After his death in 1942, the Library of Congress acquired roughly 20,000 items from his unclaimed studio. The collection comprises portraits as well as images of San Francisco's Chinatown, dance photographs, and autochromes.
The negative remains in the archive's holdings as a record of Genthe's early portrait work, though the circumstances of the sitting and the subject's name are unknown.
Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.
About the format
Rights & Attribution
Explore
More from the 1890s
