(PHOTOGRAPHY) [James Conway Farley] Group of 5 cabinet card

Sale 2562 - Lot 318

Price Realized: $ 2,500

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500

(PHOTOGRAPHY.) [James Conway Farley.] Group of 5 cabinet card portraits by the Jefferson Fine Art Gallery. Photographs, each about 5 x 4 inches more or less, on 5 different photographer's mounts, all marked with the Jefferson Gallery name and 523 Broad Street address on recto; various conditions, 3 with moderate dampstaining and soiling, one with minor soiling, and the other quite clean. Richmond, VA, circa 1896-1906

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Additional Details

James Conway Farley (1855-after 1910) of Richmond, VA is regarded as "the first prominent Black photographer in the United States" (Encyclopedia of African American Business, page 296). After many years at other studios, he opened his own Jefferson Fine Art Studio in 1895 or 1896. According to the Richmond directories and newspapers, the Jefferson studio was at 523 East Broad Street through 1906. Farley worked at 627 East Broad in 1907 and 1908. He appeared as a photographer in Jersey City, NJ in the 1910 census before disappearing from the historical record.

None of these photographs is fully identified, though one of the portraits has a pencil inscription on verso: "From Annabel to Fannie." We trace no other examples of Farley's work at auction.