Last week, a long-rumored and probably unpublished pair of stereocard photographs of Emperor Norton on a street in San Francisco’s Chinatown appeared on Facebook.
The Emperor Norton Trust is delighted to be able to publish, for the first time, large, hi-res images of the original stereocard, courtesy of the previous owner.
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Emperor Norton was a favorite subject of a number of celebrity portrait photography studios that came to prominence in San Francisco during his reign. The Emperor is most closely associated with the studio of Bradley & Rulofson; and he was included in the studio's Celebrity Catalogue, which clients used to order prints of photographs produced by the studio. The Catalogue was a kind of index of the social stratification of the day — and offers a window into the Emperor's place in the social structure.
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Three intriguing photographs of Emperor Norton taken by the studio of Thomas Houseworth & Co. in the 1870s show the evolution of the Emperor's style.
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