Baltimore Albumen Photograph by James F. Hughes Company, Ca. 1890–1900, Copy of Children’s Painted Portrait with Globe and Book.

Unusual Baltimore mounted albumen copy

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Large-format albumen photograph by James F. Hughes Company, 754 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, showing a painted portrait of six children gathered around a terrestrial globe. The group is posed in two triangular arrangements: one points to the globe, another rests a hand on a book, while others directly face the viewer. The painting’s Enlightenment-inflected iconography emphasizes education, cosmopolitan awareness, and familial virtue.

According to the Albin O. Kughn Library, the “Hughes Company was a commercial photography studio in Baltimore, MD founded by James F. Hughes, circa 1878. Business was good for Hughes, and the studio thrived into the 1890’s. After his death in the early 1900’s, the company was sold to his studio assistant, photographer James W. Scott. James Scott was very successful at the helm of the studio, producing advertising photographs for diverse clients such as Westinghouse Company and the Baltimore Sun, as well as local businesses, and school and church groups.”

Seen in this light, the photograph may well have been produced for an educational setting. The choice of a painted scene celebrating children’s learning and moral development would have made a fitting image for display in a classroom, parlor, or school office.

Price: $125.00