Framed Portrait of a Man, Horses and Children (Original Photograph)

Late 19th or turn-of-the-20th century original photographic print of a farmer with two horse team, wagon and what looks like two young boys in the driver’s seat.

We have a large collection of images taken by the itinerant photographers that traveled across all of upstate New York. They’re usually formulaic and comprised of an entire family and sometimes animals standing in front of their then new farm houses in broad day light. Not only are the compositions formulaic with individual family members oddly dispersed across the width of the scene rather than together, but their posture is unnaturally stiff and everything is in sharp focus. It sort of reveals that this was a mechanical rather than artful process of documentation and that the whole process was alien, not only to the subjects but also the photographers.

This image – one of three from a single group and roughly the same time period as the farm portraits – could not be more different. It has depth and richness and is filled with a glow that dissolves less important details and while emphasizing compositional queue’s that direct a viewer’s eye around the field.

Rather than at strict attention for the photographer’s camera, the farmer stands to the side of his cart and large dark horses, casually askance with weight shifted onto his left leg. This body language directs a viewer’s eyes not only back toward the two horses that dominate the foreground, but also the previously invisible children in the seat just behind them. All of this not only suggests a familiarity and level of comfort between the photographer and his subjects but also a level of extreme competence on the part of the photographer. Photography was, after all, still a curiosity and mechanical process which hadn’t yet become the tool for narrative and communication that it is, today.

One of three from the same collection available separately.

The photo is mounted on its original gray backboard, but re-matted with archival board and re-framed under glass in a circa 1880’s gilt-lined, walnut frame.

Matted image size is 7-1/2 inches wide and 6 tall. Overall measurements are listed below.