A Better Date for Two Photographs of Emperor Norton
WHEN I LAUNCHED the Emperor Norton Trust’s website in early 2014, one of the original features was this gallery of photographs ― and, the roundup, expanded since then, included these two photos of the Emperor:
Source: Wells Fargo
Source: Bonhams
Multiple sources listed the creator of both photographs as the Bradley & Rulofson studio.
The Emperor looks the same, physically, in both photos. He also appears to be dressed exactly the same, down to the necktie, the walking stick, and even the "flower" — real or possibly embroidered, it's hard to tell — that is pinned in exactly the same place on the Emp's coat.
These observations, together with the documentation of the studio, led me to make the educated guess that these two photographs possibly were taken during the same sitting — and, I still think this is the most likely explanation.
The only dates I found were for the seated photograph on the left. There were two listings at the digital clearinghouse Calisphere — for separate examples of the photo at the California State Library and at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. The dates provided by these institutions were conflicting and, in fact, strongly divergent. But, one of the dates was credible: 1864. Emperor Norton’s appearance in the photograph is consistent with his appearance in other photos from the 1860s. And, the specificity of the year led me to suppose that the date was more than a guess.
So, for the last decade, I have used 1864 as the date for both of these photographs.
The dating was persuasive enough that, when the Bonhams auction house sold a Norton-signed carte de visite of the standing photograph in 2020, Bonhams used “c.1864” in its listing for the card.
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RECENTLY, I NOTED that an 1864 dating no longer is included in either of the Calisphere listings for the seated photograph. Nor do I find an 1864 dating for the photo anywhere else.
Absent this most basic corroboration, there no reason to keep using 1864 as the date of Bradley & Rulofson’s seated and standing photographs of Emperor Norton from this period.
Indeed, there may be a good case for a different date.
The occasion for me to be looking into all this is my discovery of the following Daily Alta newspaper item from September 1867.
“Royalty Photographed,” item on new photograph of Emperor Norton by the Bradley & Rulofson studio, Daily Alta California, 13 September 1867, p.1. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
ROYALTY PHOTOGRAPHED. — His Majesty Norton I, D. G., Emp., etc., our ever-beloved sovereign, has, at the request of many of his faithful subjects, consented to sit for his photograph, and Messrs. Bradley and Rulofson have produced a mammoth picture, of almost life size, wonderfully life-like, and artistic in all its details. His Majesty is en grand tenue, and the "divinity which doth hedge a King" stands out unmistakably in every feature of his noble face, and every wrinkle of his coat, too plain to be mistaken for a moment.
Is it possible that this 1867 item refers to a “lost” Bradley & Rulofson photograph of Emperor Norton? Yes — but, the available evidence points in a different direction.
The two photographs above are the earliest Bradley & Rulofson photos in our collection. The collection includes one earlier photo of the Emperor. The photographer is unknown. But, the date is c.1859–60. Henry Bradley and William Rulofson did not form their partnership until 1863 — so this earlier photo cannot be their work.
Apart from the 1867 item, a review of California newspapers in the major databases does not reveal a mention of any other photograph(s) of Emperor Norton during the 1860s, except for Eadweard Muybridge’s famous March 1869 photo of the Emperor astride a velocipede.
In particular: The Alta item above will have been written by Albert Evans, who arrived as city editor of the Daily Alta California in 1863 and remained there until his untimely death in 1872. Evans made a point of reporting any new photographic or artistic depiction of Emperor Norton. He wrote up the Muybridge photograph in 1869, and he always noted any new drawings or cartoons featuring the Emperor — like those by Edward Jump — that appeared in shop windows. It would have been unusual for Evans to have left any other new photo of the Emperor unremarked.
Moreover: In the 1867 item, Evans writes that “His Majesty Norton I…has, at the request of his many faithful subjects, consented to sit for his photograph, and Messrs. Bradley and Rulofson have produced a mammoth picture.” [emphases mine] The strong indication is that this was the first time that the Emperor sat for Bradley & Rulofson.
Ockham’s Razor argues for the conclusion that the Alta item of 13 September 1867 refers to one of the two photographs above.
The Emperor Norton Trust has revised its date for both the seated and the standing photograph to “probably 1867.”
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