Portrait of Adah Isaacs Menken

Born in Quebec, then part of the British colony of Lower Canada, Napoleon Sarony moved to New York in 1836 to work as an illustrator. He later cofounded a photography firm in 1843. When his wife died in 1858, he left the firm and traveled across Europe in search of a new creative community and more artistic training. He spent time with his brother Oliver, a famed photographer, in Scarborough, England, before opening his own studio in Birmingham. He returned to New York in 1866. Over the course of his lifetime, Sarony photographed Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, William T. Sherman, Mark Twain, and countless other luminaries in theater, politics, and literature.