In his time, Napoleon Sarony was considered one of the world’s greatest portrait photographers. He specialized in portraits of actors, which he mass produced as cheap cartes-de-visite, and other types of cards. Their popularity with the public reflected the new interest in theater and celebrity that emerged in America after the Civil War. Sarony, born in Canada, began his career in New York as a lithographer but, at a time when the art of photography was still very new, went to Europe for training. He established his first studio in New York City in 1866, but in only a few years was able to open a larger studio in the city’s Union Square.
Sifre ‘evronot—manuals for calculating the Jewish calendar, including leap years and holidays—were a popular genre of Ashkenazic illustrated manuscripts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries…
This engraving depicting a Jewish woman in Izmir, Turkey, is from Cornelis de Bruyn’s travelogue, Reizen van Corn. de Bruyn door de vermaardste deelen van Klein Asia, de eylanden Scio, Rhodus, Cyprus…