Mar 23, 2010 - Sale 2208

Sale 2208 - Lot 3

Price Realized: $ 3,840
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
DODGE, STEPHEN O. (1842-?)
A compelling boudoir card titled "Uncle Ben (100 Years Old) and His 7th Wife." Printing-out-paper print, 4 3/4x8 inches (12.1x20.3 cm.), with Dodge's credit, the title and copyright date in gilt-letterpress on mount recto; with a Chattanooga, Tenn. booksellers's imprint on mount verso; all edges gilt. 1893
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Additional Details

The Photograph and the American Dream 1840-1940, 53.
We would not wager that this man's name was Ben, or that he was 100 years old, or that he was married seven times, but it is a haunting image of the South a generation removed from slavery. Dodge was a Tennessee dealer in photographic supplies. He sent this (or a related image) to Wilson's Photographic Magazine, who noted: "'Mary Ann,' the seventh wife of 'Old Uncle Ben'--a tremendous colored picture--comes to us from Mr. S.C. Dodge, Chattanooga, Tenn. Mr. Dodge is a particularly successful in catching Negro character camera-ally. He says that 'Mary Ann asserts that she was six years old when de stars fell.'"