This Cabinet Card and the next three were found together, at a small antique and vintage store in Soquel, California. It’s possible but unknown for sure whether the people in these four photos are related. This one is a sepia-toned rendition of a handsome mustachioed gentleman who appears to be in his twenties or early thirties. He is formally posed with one hand behind his back, holding his derby hat (a.k.a. bowler in the U.K.) in the other, and gazing off to his right. He wears a suit with vest and a knee-length coat with wide lapels, over a white shirt and a white or off-white probably silk tie. The backdrop is a country setting showing the dreamy outline of trees and bushes and a suggestion of a stone pathway abutting a low stone or concrete railing. Also, just to mention a couple of the other details in the photo – we see, of course, the subject’s watch chain on display as part of his attire, but what takes closer inspection is the shirt cuff appearing under the coat sleeve. The cuff appears to be of the stiff and possibly detachable variety. (For a shirt cuff-related trade card see an earlier post on this website entitled: B. J. Stone Trade Card, New Haven, CT
Underneath the photo in gold-tone script appears, “Brown, Photographer,” and off to the right, in smaller lettering, “Modesto, Cal.”
The photographic artist for this photo is believed to be William Brown (1838 – 1893) who was a prominent Modesto photographer. No other possibilities jump out at us in our searches in this area for a photographer under this last name and for the time period of roughly 1870 – 1900, when the Cabinet Card was popular. According to author Wayne A. Mathes and the McHenry Museum, William Brown had a photographic gallery as early as 1871, which is the date given for a shop that he established on Front Street, a.k.a. Ninth Street, in Modesto.
Cabinet Card, circa 1871 – 1880s. Photographer: William Brown.
Price: $15.00
Sources: Year: 1880; Census Place: Modesto, Stanislaus, California; Roll: 84; Family History Film: 1254084; Page: 333C; Enumeration District: 094; Image: 0669. (Ancestry.com)
Mathes, Wayne A., and the McHenry Museum. Modesto. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2011. (Google.com partial book view)