"Practically every town in Victorian America boasted a photography studio. The proprietor, whether he knew it or not, was an early chronicler of family life. Newborns, graduates, brides, grooms, and entire families posed for the camera – alongside wicker props.
Ornate wicker furniture made its debut in photography studios during the 1870s. Light, airy and noticeably three-dimensional in photographs, wicker props made greater headway in studios during the 1880s and early 1900s. Because it was so inexpensive and easy to store, photographers and the public took wicker to their hearts. In fact, fancy wicker pieces became known as “photographer’s chairs.” Wicker’s popularity in studios created a new market; Heywood Brothers and Wakefield Company featured in their 1898 catalogue an extremely ornate five-legged “posing chair” specifically designed as a photographer’s prop." - "Collector’s Guide to American Wicker Furniture," by Richard Saunders, published by Hearst Books, New York, 1983, p. 43. The following pages contain photographs showing various ornate wicker chairs that were used by photographers. The chair shown in this photograph appears on pages 47 and 57. The same chair, obviously used by Southwest Harbor photographer. J.C. Ralph, appears in other photographs in the library collection.
Ralph - John C. Ralph (1868-1949), “Bertha Emily Robinson,” Southwest Harbor Public Library, accessed April 20, 2024, https://swhpl.digitalarchive.us/items/show/5054.Item 11767
