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Vintage: Zahra Khanom Tadj es-Saltaneh – Persian princess

Vintage: Zahra Khanom Tadj es-Saltaneh – Persian princess

Taj Saltaneh (1883 – 1936‎) was a Persian princess and memoirist of the Qajar Dynasty, a daughter of Naser al-Din Shah, the King of Persia from 1843 to May 1896 by his wife Turan es-Saltaneh. She was married to Amir Hussein Khan Shoja’-al Saltaneh and had four children, two daughters and two sons. They later divorced. She was the love…
Richard Avedon: Relationships

Richard Avedon: Relationships

Drawn from the Richard Avedon collection at the Center for Creative Photography, Richard Avedon: Relationships presents eighty portrait and fashion photographs – ranging from the 1950s to the early 2000s – including examples of Avedon’s large-scale prints. The exhibition will explore three kinds of “relationships” in Avedon’s life and work: the interactions between the figures within the frame, the partnerships…
Vintage: American Actresses Greeting New Year’s Eve

Vintage: American Actresses Greeting New Year’s Eve

Most nations of Western Europe officially adopted 1 January as New Year’s Day somewhat before they adopted the Gregorian Calendar. In Tudor England, New Year’s Day, along with Christmas Day and Twelfth Night, was celebrated as one of three main festivities among the twelve days of Christmastide. There, until the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752, the first day…
Vintage: Coney Island, New York City (1900s)

Vintage: Coney Island, New York City (1900s)

In 1824, the Gravesend and Coney Island Road and Bridge Company built the first bridge across Jamaica Ditch (by now known as Coney Island Creek), connecting the island with the mainland. The company also built a shell road across the island to the beaches. In 1829, the company also built the first hotel on the island: the Coney Island House,…
Larry Fink: Primal Empathy

Larry Fink: Primal Empathy

Photographer Larry Fink (b. 1941) creates intimate, nuanced images of human interaction. Caught in the light of his camera’s flash, his subjects are absorbed in sensual connection, unspoken familiarity, and comic revelry. Drawn from deCordova’s permanent collection with loans from the artist, this exhibition focuses on empathy in Fink’s work. Whether photographing members of elite urban society or rural farmers,…
Biography: 19th Century photographer Geraldine Moodie

Biography: 19th Century photographer Geraldine Moodie

Geraldine Moodie (1854 – 1945) was a pioneering Canadian photographer. She married John Douglas Moodie in England in 1878 and they had six children. They returned to Canada and briefly farmed in Manitoba, then moved to Ottawa, and in 1885 her husband received a commission with the North-West Mounted Police. She is best known for her work with Aboriginal peoples…
Vintage: Scotland’s Landscapes (19th Century)

Vintage: Scotland’s Landscapes (19th Century)

The whole of Scotland was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages and the landscape is much affected by glaciation. From a geological perspective, the country has three main sub-divisions. The Highlands and Islands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland largely comprises ancient…
Vintage: Tight Corset (Victorian era)

Vintage: Tight Corset (Victorian era)

The corset has been attributed to Catherine de’ Medici, wife of King Henry II of France. She enforced a ban on thick waists at court attendance during the 1550s. For nearly 350 years, women’s primary means of support was the corset, with laces and stays made of whalebone or metal. Other researchers have found evidence of the use of corsets…
Vintage: The Bishop’s Wife (1947)

Vintage: The Bishop’s Wife (1947)

The Bishop’s Wife is a Samuel Goldwyn romantic comedy feature film from 1947, starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven in a story about an angel who helps a bishop with his problems. The film was adapted by Leonardo Bercovici and Robert E. Sherwood from the 1928 novel of the same name by Robert Nathan, and was directed by…
Vintage: A Christmas Carol (1938)

Vintage: A Christmas Carol (1938)

A Christmas Carol is a 1938 American film adaptation of Charles Dickens’s 1843 novella of the same name, starring Reginald Owen as Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who learns the error of his ways on Christmas Eve after visitations by three spirits. On Christmas Eve in 19th-century London, Fred is sliding on ice on a sidewalk. He meets Peter and…
Vintage: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Vintage: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

It’s a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy comedy-drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet The Greatest Gift, which Philip Van Doren Stern wrote in 1939 and published privately in 1945. On Christmas Eve 1945, in Bedford Falls, New York, George Bailey contemplates suicide. Prayers for him reach Heaven, where…
Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Monaco (1890s)

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Monaco (1890s)

Designated as a protectorate of the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna after Napoleon’s defeat, Monaco’s sovereignty was confirmed by the Franco-Monegasque Treaty of 1861. France accepted the existence of the Principality of Monaco, but annexed 95% of its former territory (the areas of Menton and Roquebrune). Monaco’s military defense since then has been the responsibility…
Biography: 19th Century photographer Farnham Maxwell-Lyte

Biography: 19th Century photographer Farnham Maxwell-Lyte

Farnham Maxwell-Lyte (1828 – 1906) was an English chemist and the pioneer of a number of techniques in photographic processing. As a photographer he is known for his views of the French Pyrenees. In 1853, he travelled to Luz-Saint-Sauveur in the Pyrenees on account of his bad health and in 1856 his family joined him. He settled in Pau, and…
Vintage: Clémentine Delait – French bearded lady

Vintage: Clémentine Delait – French bearded lady

Clémentine Delait (1865 – 1939) was a French bearded lady who kept a café. Delait and her husband kept a café in Thaon-les-Vosges, in Lorraine, France. According to later accounts, Clémentine Delait visited a carnival, saw a bearded woman with some stubble and boasted that she could grow a better beard herself. Her husband bet 500 francs to back her.…
Andrew Joseph Russell and Alfred A. Hart: The Race to Promontory: The Transcontinental Railroad and the American West

Andrew Joseph Russell and Alfred A. Hart: The Race to Promontory: The Transcontinental Railroad and the American West

The completion of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, was as celebrated a national event as the first moon landing, exactly a century later. The first major news event carried “live” from coast-to-coast, telegraph wires were attached to the final spike, and as it was gently tapped with a silver maul, the strokes uniting East and…
Vintage: Christmas Shopping in the past

Vintage: Christmas Shopping in the past

“Christmas creep” refers to a merchandising phenomenon in which merchants and retailers exploit the commercialized status of Christmas by moving up the start of the holiday shopping season. The term was first used in the mid-1980s, and is associated with a desire of merchants to take advantage of particularly heavy Christmas-related shopping well before Black Friday in the United States…
Builder Levy: Appalachia USA

Builder Levy: Appalachia USA

Appalachia USA is a unique documentary project by the New York-based photographer Builder Levy (b. 1942) that explores life and labor in coal mining communities in Kentucky and West Virginia during the span of 40 years. Levy’s arresting black-and-white photographs connect us to the very heart of coal mining. He traces the indelible legacy of the coal industry on the…
Vintage: Portraits of Mary Pickford – Silent Movie Star

Vintage: Portraits of Mary Pickford – Silent Movie Star

Mary Pickford (1892 – 1979) was known in her prime as “America’s Sweetheart” and the “girl with the curls”. She was one of the Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood and a significant figure in the development of film acting. Pickford was one of the earliest stars to be billed under her own name, and was one of the most popular…
Biography: 19th Century photographer John Dillwyn Llewelyn

Biography: 19th Century photographer John Dillwyn Llewelyn

John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810 – 1882) was a botanist and pioneer photographer. In January 1839, following the announcements of photographic processes by both William Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, Llewelyn, with the encouragement of Henry Talbot, began to experiment himself. He tried all the processes available. His earliest daguerreotype is dated 1840. A few of his early…