vintage photo

Moon Woman

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A Pictorama part two post with this framed postcard. The frame was purchased first and much earlier than the postcard. I picked that up from @marsh.and.meadow.overflow in a sale of odds and ends. It’s a beaut! I knew I would find a use for it and even though I was on something of a money diet at the moment I jumped at putting it in my electronic cart. It has some age on it and sports a decorative faux wood design. The back is very old, probably more fitted to sitting up on a desk or table than hanging on the wall, although I guess we’ve figured that out too.

After it arrived and perhaps even in my mental machinations, I realized that the right postcard in it would make a dandy gift for Kim. Although I spend a lot of time with cat photos obviously, I was looking for something more Deitchian for him.

I felt truly inspired when I ran across a set of these Art Nouveau postcards, once again on Instagram, from a seller I have followed for a while but never purchased from, @ghost_era. Presented as a group in a series but sold individually I zeroed in on this one immediately – although I admit to being tempted to buy several! (A few remain available at their shop at Ghost Era Antiques.) Hard to explain but this photo postcard seemed to be perfection.

Another Reutlinger photo postcard, not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

I’m not sure exactly why I love this photo so much but I really do; the woman, the moon and the radiating light, and then the stars! It epitomizes a certain kind of picture. There is the subtle color, from yellow to blue. I like the way some of the stars have been left bright white though for emphasis. The moon has some mottling (a nod to the man there?) and a deep shadow behind her. The woman is in a sort of nightgown dress – she’s dreaming? We are?

It would appear that this card was produced by the photographer Léopold-Émile Reutlinger (March 17, 1863 – March16, 1937). His uncle founded a Parisian photography studio where his father worked as the photographer. (Léopold’s son Jean became a prominent photographer too although sadly died in WWI.) Both photographed the rich and most importantly famous of the day, but he took the family business to a new height and is the one remembered today. I wonder if this is due to the popularity of photo postcards and I would think in part this Art Nouveau style which he excelled at.

I gave this to Kim last year. And yes! I believe that is the trademark R for Reutlinger at the bottom right!

As I look over his work online I can’ help but wonder if a few of the other postcards in my collection can be attributed to him. I am thinking of a Valentine’s Day gift I gave Kim last year below. (Post can be read here.)

In 1930, Reutlinger suffered an accident with a champagne cork, (weird sort of irony, yes?) which cost him an eye and seriously affected his profession. But he continued to run the studio until his death in Paris in 1937.

Meanwhile, Kim has a good spot on the wall over his desk picked out for it, above a Frank Borzage still from Lucky Star. Some rearranging needs to go on first but I look forward to seeing it there along with a few other Borzage stills we are swapping in for other photos. (A post on those stills can be found here and here.) Maybe a future post on the walls here at Deitch Studio. For now, enjoy the rest of this holiday weekend if you are reading in real time.

Still Life with Nick Carter

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s post is the first of a few highlighting things I gave Kim for his birthday this year, celebrated last week at the time of writing this. Kim doesn’t like a lot of fuss over his birthday, but I try to find something he’s either wanted or failing that, like this year, some original bits. (A past post of a birthday gift can be found here.)

Today’s photo is tiny, only sort of 2.25″x 2.75″ or so. I ran across it on my Instagram feed via @baleighfaucz and it whispered Kim! at me a bit so here we are. In addition to being small (smaller in fact than I anticipated) it has these two deep creases in it. These are of course unfortunate, but they do not rob me of any pleasure in getting a glimpse into a little world of long ago offered up here.

I cannot say I can identify everything in the image. The Nick Carter, Secret Agent Weekly, is from April 20, 1912 and cost 5 cents – seems like a princely sum actually. I think it was this that put me in the mind of Kim as he has passed through a few dime novel stages, although not to say he’s a fan of Nick Carter in particular. According to Wikipedia Detective Nick Carter leapt onto the scene in 1886 (Kim is telling me he and Sherlock Holmes hit the scene at roughly the same time), and had an extraordinary meandering run through more than a century beyond, hitting incarnations in various forms of popular media from dime novels to radio and beyond, with a most recent stop as a series of novels that were produced from 1964-1990.

This tiny image is the only color version I could find on the internet.

A pipe, cigarettes, cigar and a pocket watch are in the foreground although in front of them is some sort of small paper package I can’t identify and in the lower right corner something utterly lost on me. A decorative beer stein is perched on a well used Central Union Cut Plug tobacco tin. One site selling such a tin says they were often used as lunch pails once depleted. This one appears to still host tobacco.

Saw some pricey perfect versions for sale but at the time of writing you could have this one for $20 on eBay.

An odd illustration which is entitled simply Life in script at the top and appears to be of two men at a dinner table with a menu, one in evening cloths and a plumed hat and the other dressed as a woman is at the back. Can’t imagine the importance of it to the photographer although it serves as sort of a title for the image overall.

Looking at a few of these objects in color makes me wonder if he was disappointed with it in black and white. It is a dynamic little photo, but my guess is that the colors were pretty punchy in person.

I love to think of the photographer, maybe a young man back in the spring of 1912, setting up this photo. They were likely a nascent enthusiast as home photography was still just becoming popular. It is sort of sweet to think of a serious young fellow studiously putting this together, (why these particular things? smoking, reading, drinking) showing us a slice of his life that we can consider so many decades later.

Mourning

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This unusual photo was a birthday gift from a good friend (thank you @eileentravell) which she gave me recently. It a large, half plate, tintype. Aside from a bent corner, some chewed up edges and that odd ding on her dress near the chair, it is in fairly good shape.

As I started spending time with the image it confused me a bit admittedly. She is in what I have to assume is mourning, her all black attire, down to her black fur muff. Her clothing best dates this to my mind is probably the 1890’s. There is some relief in the white lace ruffle and the middle to light gray of her hat, something light colored like a handkerchief peeping out of her pocket.

Hair mourning brooch given to me by a friend. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

She looks grave and pale as she leans on the prop chair, covered in this cloth with a patterned edge. The background prop is a bit sad and cheesy as well, a view out a faux window, hangs a bit askew and folds below it. The carpet defines the space that she is atop, but that too ends at the front edge of the picture.

Detail. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

Most interesting to me is that her cheeks have ever so slightly and delicately been pinkened by a gentle hand, which is not at all always the case in the toning of such photos. Yet, looking at her I wonder why they bothered as she is deeply in her own world of grief.

In fact, I find it interesting that such a photo was even made. Why would you want to record this period of grief in this young woman’s life? (If you look closely, she is young despite these trappings which bring a sort of middle age to mind.) I don’t know if that sort of recording of mourning was part of the intricate ways of observing the various rituals or not.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection. This mourning locket tells a whole story in the March of ’22 post highlighted below.

I never realized until recently that beyond black and gray there were lighter shades of mourning and that people would progress to lavender and even light blue. I found this out recently when someone was selling a light blue enamel piece of mourning jewelry online. While it certainly predates her, Queen Victoria really kicked off the dictates of the all black mourning of the time and rigid rules of society bound the clothing jewelry and behavior of the bereaved. At least a year of wearing black and that included jewelry which was largely made of jet or black glass which was less temperamental and therefore less expensive. Much is said about the clothing, jewelry and rituals in the late 19th to early 20th century novels I have been reading.

An example in blue enamel pulled off the internet. Ring dated 1794.

Rings and brooches adorned with bits of hair, images and later even photographs record the attachment to the lost beloved.

After the first year a progression to gray, mauve and purple were acceptable over time and that included jewelry of amethyst and garnet stones. Pearls were allusions to the tears of the wearer which I had never heard before, but many mourning pieces are decorated with them. (I recently heard that some Asian cultures view pearls that way as well.) I have written about some mourning pieces in my own collection, most given to me but others I purchased. These wearable memorials fascinate me. Those posts can be found here, here and here. (Oddly each of these posts have appeared in late March in different years – a spring thing?)

The idea of lavender and even light blue (enamel rings and lockets) in the latter stages of mourning, probably two years or more out, interests me – the point of emerging, yet still recognizing your loss and the process. I have seen lavender clothing as well from that state, but not sure I ever saw blue associated with it. For me the light blue, that final stage perhaps, is a sign of sending you back into the world of spring and blue skies again.

Ma Cheri Petit Josette

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Cat annoyance and dog acquiescence seems to be the theme of this card. Kit and pup are about the same size and both qualify for this nice little comfy looking house. Although kitty has laid claim from atop, this little doggy fellow guards the entrance. Feline high ground notwithstanding, the dog blocks the door – although he isn’t really as this is a set and I don’t think the cat or the dog would especially choose to curl up inside this adorable little house. In fact I am not sure either would comfortably fit, although we all know that wouldn’t stop the cat if indeed inclined.

The animals of my past have generally preferred without rather than within. For example, there was briefly a doghouse in our backyard. My dad purchased it secondhand somewhere, perhaps one of his beloved garage sales, and painted it up, making it a fair replica of our house. A neighbor with a sense of humor supplied a tv antennae. (Oh gosh, how many readers don’t even know what that is?) It very much resembled Snoopy’s doghouse in the comic strip which would have appealed to my father. He liked to read it to us as kids.

A black cat in cat house card I entirely forgot I own, from a 2018 post called Cat House. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

A large pen of open rails and wire surrounded it and our German Shepard, Duchess, was invited within. I have no memory of Duchess in that doghouse however and she was rarely in the pen as she mostly lived in the house. Although our cats were free-range, our dogs never were and considering she was a sizable German Shepard of somewhat mercurial affections, that made sense. (Another doggy denizen of Waterman Avenue actually spent more time in it, a naughty rescue named Charley Brown – beagle mix. Perhaps the doghouse influenced my mother’s naming convention.)

The pooch in this card is wearing a leash it might be noted, although he is clearly placid. So while seated quietly enough here, he was not wandering at will. Kitty is beautiful and fluffy, very photogenic indeed. She is pissy, all annoyed ears though as only a cat can be. There is a small food or water bowl on one side of the dog and the interior of the house is alluring with some cushy looking material stuffed inside. Something is attached to the front of the little house and it is very speculative, however it may actually be the dog’s leash. The tiny abode is made of some nice wicker-y material and oddly it appears to levitate slightly – the cat’s weight on an uneven surface tipping it?

A similar situation from a 2019 post, called Mornin’. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

The three different colors and textures help make this image work. Fluffy kit, woven house and sleek, shiny coated canine. The cat’s ears and tail do the rest – I suspect she was a pro. One can imagine a photo studio back in the dawn of the 20th century, snapping pics of posing animals all day long until enough images for a continued line of cards could be produced. I think a lovely way to spend one’s days. As I have already said, regular intervals of dog petting at work has increased my quality of life substantially in recent months.

French readers please feel free to send a rough translation!

I am supplying a photo of the back of the card and perhaps someone fluent in French can translate it for us. The hand is fine and even, but small and too hard for me to see clearly enough to try to get a translation. It is clearly from Papa to his daughter Josette. Someone else has included a small message in bright blue ink – Jeanette? A sister? The card is addressed to Mademoiselle Josette Cauchois, 15 rue Saint Laurent, Chantilly. It is postmarked Paris, 1914, but the date is obscured.

Not knowing Josette’s situation it is pure speculation, but I must say, I would be very pleased to have received this card from my own Papa.

Bill, Benron, Iowa

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This fine fat furry fellow hails to us from 1910 Diagonal, Iowa. He found his way to me via the wonderfully thoughtful Sandi Outland (@curiositiesantique, an antiques emporium in Texas) who sent me this. Some of you readers might remember that Sandi sent me an utter great holiday card with a period photo on it which inspired a post found here. She is also of the fascinating angry snowman collection which inspired the purchase of a card I wrote about here.

Sandi tucked this in this nice reproduction Felix valentine, shown below. I have often thought I should have a specimen example of this card and she has saved me the trouble of doing so. Thank you again Sandi!

This Valentine based on a popular period one of Felix.

Bill, the cat of our card, appears to be a solid citizen of the tabby cat category. Although I have not had a personal association with a tabby since childhood, they are dependably nice cats. The two that graced my childhood were Zipper and Tigger.

I wrote a bit about how Zipper and I as a small child would watch our fish tank together and he would “pat” the fish on the glass, guilty thoughts going through is mind! (Post found here.) He came to us as a starved and tormented stray, so small he was in danger of slipping into the crack in the backseat of the car. He grew into a swaggering dominant male of the neighborhood, holding parties with his kitty cronies in the garage, late night raids on a neighbors eel box! (Zipper’s story can be found here.)

Zipper was gone by the time Tigger came into our lives. He was one of a litter of kittens of our cat Winkie, a great tortoiseshell. My mom was generally a responsible and determined neuter and spay-er of our cats, but somehow Winkie got away from her in advance of being spayed. We kept the four kittens: the tiger Tigger, a marmalade named Squash, and two grays – Ping and Pong.

Tigger who had rather perfect markings was a good natured cat. She ran away once and was found in a neighbor’s barn, but sadly eventually wandered away again not to be found. I have always hoped she found another home, perhaps less bustling and with fewer cats than we had claim to at the time. I think she wanted to be an only cat.

Bill, the fellow in this card, appears to be in charge of a store. My guess is that he spent many a contented hour chasing mice (perhaps even the occasional rat) there and was soundly rewarded for his work in this area. Still, he does not appear to have lived on mice alone. I don’t know if he is just sitting on his tail oddly or if it was docked for some reason, but he is a splendid looking fellow, evidently in his prime here. Behind him is a wonderful wooden box emblazoned with Independent Baking Co. Crackers(?), Biscuits, Etc. Davenport, Iowa. I would claim it for my collection any day offered.

The card is addressed to Miss Sarah Stock, Storm Lake Iowa, Box 734, written in the most beautiful script. It was postmarked and dated April 26, 1910 from Diagonal, Iowa.

Back of card. Beautiful hand – look at how the “t” in storm forms the “L” in Lake! Still, is hard to read!

Despite the beauty of the script I am having some trouble reading it, however it appears to say, Dear Sarah, I read another letter from you this morning. I spose I’ll have to answer that to I just finished one last night, let me introduce you to Bill police patrol of Benton Ia. He looks wise. I presume to you like cats as well as I do. I can’t read his name (and no, he didn’t seem fond of periods) and I am open to suggestions. (For some reason I have assigned the sender to be a man, but it could be a woman.)

Although I have come close on several occasions as it happens I have never traveled to Iowa. The university there was under brief consideration for grad school, but life intervened before it got to the visiting stage and my grad school education never materialized. The Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra played there on tour and that was the most likely way I would have found myself there as an adult, but alas it never happened. The animal hospital I work for now is highly unlikely to send me there, although I guess you never know in life – I could make it there yet.

La Jeune France

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Rainy morning here at Deitch Studio in Manhattan. I was warned about the weather, but still managed to be disappointed when I awoke to it this morning. Sometimes rain can make me feel very cosy, but other times it is just a bit discouraging and I’m afraid I am leaning in that direction. It is early March however and here in the Northeast I guess we just have to take what we can get. It is a many cup of coffee morning as I sit here writing you all. As always though, it is a pleasant rabbit hole into the past to spend some time with one of my photos.

I don’t own many, but I do have a real affection for photos that show a store or establishment and its owner/workers and wares, especially magazines, photos (especially photo studios) or in this case postcards. They are little time capsules in a particular way.

This photo came to me via @missmollystlantiques on Instagram. In reality, a while back, she had sold me another photo in front of a photo shop and to my horror somehow sent it to the wrong person – who sadly did not send it back. She refunded me, but I was quite bereft. Then recently she sent me an offer of this photo since it was the same idea and asked if I wanted it, and here we are.

This woman (the proprietress?), stands in the door of a store called Young France. She has a sort of tunic jacket that perhaps is of the kind you might don each day in the store to keep your own dress or blouse clean. I like the bright buckles on her shoes which make me think she was probably a snappy dresser.

A look under a magnifying device reveals some small religious statues (a small Virgin Mary), medals and postcards in the large window. I think many of the postcards are vaguely religious in content too, although the top row are botanical ones. Some also look like the type of photo postcards that leave room for a bit to be written on the front, a small circle of photo at the top. I believe maybe some are photo cards that are fun – I believe I see one of a cat in a hat! There is a display of landscape photos of a souvenir type, on the doorframe next to her, hanging from a string.

My attempt at a detail of the photo.

There is a sort of display drawer under the window. They have locks and I cannot make out what is in them. The bottom of the window display also house some objects and other than a vague outline of a book, I cannot see what those are either however. Perhaps someone else would know immediately from the name and type of items what precisely this store was – souvenir items? In that case the religious items seem odd, but the reverse is also true.

Like many photo postcards, this one was never sent and it has no writing on the back. While the image on this card don’t really quite make the usual Pictorama qualifying parameters, it slips into the collection, filed in my mind under slice of life pictures.

Borzage Birthday

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: It’s a today is my birthday post. We’ve had some other post on the day or very close – here and here. The day will be spent, as is our habit, wandering around downtown, poking into stores or flea markets – precious few of both left here in NYC though! Kim will sport me to lunch and if we are in the East Village that will be a plate of perogies or matzoh brie. If it turns out to be Chinatown (which will likely still be ringing in the Year of the Dragon so maybe not) it may be dumplings. I will give a full report next week – which will also be a Deitchian Valentine reveal – an event unequaled except by the holiday card annually!

From last year’s birthday post! Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

However, despite birthday prep, I do have a post for you today – this rather spectacular press photo from Lucky Star, an all-time favorite silent film directed by Frank Borzage. Kim and I found it on eBay about 10 days ago and snatched it up as a birthday gift (another one, a toy, to follow in a subsequent post – such riches) for me and I just opened it this morning. (I have written about these films at more length in posts here and here.)

In Lucky Star Charles Farrell, who is playing the main character becomes confined to a wheelchair after fighting in WWI. He is seen on the faux snowy set with Borzage. (The artifice of the snow is especially evident under the the fence in the front.) There is something about the nature of the artifice on an early Borzage set that I love – like a painting or a diorama. The snow is my favorite however and this film has about a third of it in the snow including the wonderful climax at the end. For a long time Lucky Star was not easily available but now you can (and should!) watch it on youtube here. The cottage in the background, this little bridge and pond which is seen at various seasons in the film, and the rickety fence are all Borzage perfection.

From Lucky Star. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

There are some contemporaneous pencil notations on the back, but nothing of note. There is a very unfortunate modern sticker with the name of the film which concerns us as the glue may do a chemical chew through over time. One corner has a pushpin mark in the upper left corner.

Like my scant other stills from Lucky Star and another great film called Lazy Bones – the developer was sloppily applied and the result is odd bleaching and an unintentional sepia tone in the upper right corner. The lower left is the worst though, with a bit of uneven printer alignment too, a blob of chemical ooze is recorded on the lower right. (I have not watched Lazy Bones on youtube but you can try it here. It features Buck Jones in an atypical role – just darn great!)

From the opening of Lazy Bones. Not in my collection.

By coincidence, but perhaps also a bit of a tribute considering the purchase of the photo, last night over dinner we caught up with a later Borzage film we’d never seen via youtube as well – Until We Meet Again. (Find it here.) It would be hard to put this in the same category as the silents above, although some of Borzage’s signature aspects remain - star crossed romance, those interesting sets. Sound film, 1940. There is a rushed, low budget quality to it that works against it. Still, I was glad to see it. His films are still showing back up after years of languishing. We saw The Lady in an Italian silent film festival (via the internet) in ’22. It was good, although not really memorable. (The youtube of it is a wretched print and I cannot recommend it.)

Not in my collection.

I’m not entirely sure what it is about Borzage that speaks to me so specifically, but I will always go out of my way to see any of his work. It’s a combination of his esthetic and storytelling that speaks to some part of me deeply. Maybe I was a fan in a past life – seeing each of the silents as they came out. If you follow that logic, I will still be watching them, again and again, in a future life too. Meanwhile, it’s one of those “big” birthdays, so I will let you know what I think after I have digested it a bit.

“Snow Time” ’18

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I am always very pleased when the gift of a great photo for the Pictorama library falls into my mitts and this year it came via a holiday card from our friend in Texas known here by the moniker of @curiositiesantique, aka Sandi Outland who works there. (This doesn’t happen often, a photo coming to me this way, however I do remember recently posting about a splendid photo postcard I found in my pile which turned out to be sent to Kim by Robert Crumb. Really would have picked that photo myself. That post can be found here.)

Sandi and I had a wonderful, lengthy holiday DM exchange over antique angry snowmen (photos, cards and items) which actually lead to last week’s kid in a snowman costume post which can be found here. She collects deeply in this area and recently sent a photo of her mantle, piled high with grumpy snowman goodness. I may not be able to contain myself and maybe the house in Jersey will be decorated in grumpy snowmen next holiday season. We shall see. Meanwhile, I am trying to tempt her into coming up for a Brimfield fiesta with me. (Talk about larks! More to come on that and future post I hope.)

This was the book we were discussing. Kim bought it for me at a con we were at a few months back and Bob Eckstein was there selling them!

While I have never had the chance to visit Dallas and enjoy an in-person peruse of the physical store I have followed their Instagram account now for many years. The shop is owned by Jason Cohen, and I have chatted with Jason and Sandi on the phone over numerous purchases. In addition to what catches my eye on my the feed, they keep an eagle eye out for my cat related interests, and as a result a jolly box arrives from them periodically. (Some of their goodies can also be found online here. Right now there’s a bronze statue of greyhounds romping and a pirate bank, both which I find very tempting in different ways. See below.)

Some of Sandi’s collection.
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Sadly the photo did suffer a small bend in transit, but in no way does that diminish its appeal. Someone has applied the tiniest bit of sparkle along the line where the snow meets the building, on the bottom of the one girl’s shoe and coat and also and under the sled. (The one under her foot leaves me wondering if she is wearing skates or does it create that impression? Why would she be sitting there with skates on?)

Postcards from Sandi’s collection.

Of course it has all the elements you want from a snowy scene, they are bundled up in their winter best and they have this great little white dog perched on their wooden sled. They are clad in perky hats, heavy coats and scarves. Behind them is a back stair and a somewhat indistinct house. It is an old fashion typewriter that inscribed it at the bottom. The photo has been mounted on cardboard so I don’t know what the back is like and that cardboard mounted on the card stock. Sandi told me she had been saving it for me and I am most grateful.

My dad couldn’t have resisted this little bronze which makes me tempted to buy it!

If I were in New Jersey I might be able to dig out a photo of me and my sister in the snow with our dog and sled, circa 1968 or so. At the time we were in a house in a town called Englewood in north Jersey. It had a backyard I remember as huge, with a rock garden going up a hill. That incline was probably just enough for us on our version of a wooden sled which was the classic wood and red paint model of the day. We were stuffed into the snow suits of the day – amazing we could stand up and walk in them at all.

I really thought this was a cowboy at first and I would have really had to have it. Still, a pirate bank is very good...

Meanwhile, our German Shepard (Dutchess) shown in that photo loved to play in the snow with us. My father would make little snowballs and pitch them to her and she would leap up to grab them in her mouth – must have been cold! She was very young at the time though and my memory is that she was always up for any play with us kids outside, all seasons.

It’s a snowless, but gray January day here in Manhattan as I write this. However, contemplating all this fun in the snow has me considering braving for a run or at least a stroll later.

Snowy

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: It has been well publicized that New York City has been snowless (some might say snow free) for a 700 day streak which we just broke last week. There is (some) snow on the ground as I write. As a generally glass half full kind of girl I like snow and usually can immerse myself in the romance of it. It’s pretty. It covers the city in a temporary blanket of white, briefly hiding a multitude of sins. Of course on the other side you have to accept drippy messy days as it melts and a reality of black ice underfoot.

My first day of work was the snowy day and I have ended up wearing my snow boots to the job each day. This job and I have an odd track record for extreme weather as I interviewed during a historic rain which triggered mass flooding in the city. I’m not sure of what the broader implications are for the meteorological effects of my working at this animal hospital are going to be under the circumstances! Considering my commute is a walk a little more than a mile each way to and from work, weather is going to matter. (There is a pokey bus, but I am generally too impatient to wait for it.) This week’s snow was a mostly decorative not inhibitive one.

A bigger snow out our window from 2022.

In anticipation and celebration of impending snow I picked up this odd postcard. I have never seen a similar snowman costume and I wonder how long this kid, or any kid, was a willing participant. His hands are entirely covered in the cotton batting that makes his suit. The snowy batting gives him the requisite round head and suggests a rounded body, especially if you add in his arms. Those thorny looking sticks remind me of something Krampus carries. A crushed and not quite jaunty hat with a bird atop finishes the look.

The writing declares, Happy New Year! There is a sort of a full moon behind him with a few more birds atop it. If you look carefully you can see a dark line to define it was added and also that there is a white layer of snow gathered on top. Snowflakes in the form of white paint cover the surface as well, offering some depth to the very artificial scene.

Back of card.

This card was mailed on December 27, but the year is indistinct. It may be 1908. It is addressed in pencil on the back to, Miss Margaret Cosgrove, New Hampton, Orange Co. NY. The sender is harder to read, but is something along the lines of Bob Bruening Batt HH St. TA AEH. It is also marked, Soldiers Mail in the same hand and stamped As Censored and noted in a different hand, in pen, O.K. E.P. Woodard, 1st Lt. 21st F.A.(?) There is no personal note however.

While my first instinct is a childlike enthusiasm for the white stuff, it does impede my running and generally gums things up and slows them down. In New Jersey the driveway and sidewalk have to be cleared. Somehow the world no longer really stops for a snow day the way it did when you were a kid and school was called off. However, I will try to cultivate a cheerful attitude about it since I think we see more snow ahead here in New York City in the coming months.

Barker Brothers – the Long Shot

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is another installment of my nascent collection of yard long photos. These came to me via @reds_antiques on Instagram. He is a splendid west coast dealer and somehow I have managed to purchase a number of lamps and photographs from him. I suspect if I lived closer I would also be purchasing furniture from him but I have contained myself thus far. (Full images below – click on them to enlarge.)

Pams-Pictorama.com
Pams-Pictorama.com

These photos caught my eye one evening while scrolling through my feed, and after corresponding decided to purchase the lot of them so that they would stay together, although I knew it was my intention to only frame the two very large ones. (A video look at each below too.) There are a clutch of far less interesting group shots taken in a studio.

Barker Brothers Annual Picnic, 1919. Pams-Pictorama.com

As always, I know these are hard to fully appreciate in this presentation although I have tried valiantly. These are a full 48 inches long. Unlike my earlier purchases these were not framed so I took them to a local New Jersey framer my mom used to use. They were speedy and did a nice job. After some discussion we landed on gray mats although I had thought to do them without and needed to be talked into the necessity. They are already so large, I didn’t want to make them a bit larger, but I like the way they look now in the end.

Barker’s Brother Picnic, yard long photo. Pams-Pictorama.com

Although my original thought had been only New Jersey themed photos in this house, I decided I could extend myself to beach and pier scenes when I saw these! Nothing like a good old amusement pier. (Not sure I have every recounted my days visiting the remaining scrap of amusement pier in Long Branch, New Jersey as a kid and then teenager. Among other things friends worked at the Haunted House and outdid themselves to scare us if we came through!)

Below are a few details of each.

The thing I like most about these photos are the amusement rides behind the people – oh that roller coaster (Blue Stream) and that interesting castle, wonder what that was. This is the Santa Monica Pleasure Pier in case you cannot catch the name which is on both.

If you are trying to figure it out, these are not the same year. The smaller of the two, the one with a white border, is dated August 23, 1919. The other one does not appear to have a date – there are some numbers near the studio . Clearly though, both represent the Barker Brother’s Annual Picnic which was clearly quite the affair. The larger of the two (as noted) does not have a border and is printed oddly and it looks cut off, especially on the bottom.

For the record, Barker Brother’s Furniture Company of Los Angeles was founded in 1890 and was in existence for about100 years, folding in 1992 after a bankruptcy filing a few years before. The building, once fairly remarkable, is still extant (renovated in 2020) in a somewhat reduced appearance.

Lastly, these were both taken by M.F. Weaver Photography at 1196 West 38 Street, Los Angeles. Miles Weaver (1879-1932) started his career as a prospector. His photographic career, which began in 1910, came about with the death of his father in-law and moved to Los Angeles (from Santa Maria) in 1916. The studio became one of the largest of this genre of photos – taking pictures of banquets, army troops, religious revivals, beauty pageants, movie stills and even the early Academy Awards. After Miles’s death in 1932 the studio was run by his wife and sons until the 1960’s when it dissolved.

My quest continues! I am especially interested in acquiring some landscape ones up next, but we’ll see what comes my way.