This exceptionally handsome circa-1880s cabinet card presents a distinguished unidentified gentleman photographed by the celebrated San Francisco photographer Isaiah West Taber (1830–1912). The sharply focused bust portrait is presented in an elegant embossed oval vignette and shows the sitter with neatly groomed hair and a substantial mustache, dressed in a dark three-piece suit with contrasting lapel edging, high white collar, and broad cravat or ascot-style neckcloth. A cravat was a wide piece of formal neckwear, an ancestor of the modern necktie, that could be folded or arranged decoratively at the throat and tucked into the waistcoat; this gentleman has further embellished his with a striking jeweled cravat pin or stickpin, apparently fashioned as a small floral or cross-shaped cluster. The stones have considerable sparkle in the photograph and may have been diamonds or another gemstone, although their material cannot be determined from the image alone. Taber was one of the most important commercial photographers working in late-19th-century California. Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1830, he went to sea on whaling vessels as a teenager, traveled to California during the Gold Rush in 1850, worked for a time as a miner and farmer, and later studied dentistry before photography became his life’s work. He returned to California in 1864 to work with the prominent San Francisco firm Bradley & Rulofson and established his own Taber Gallery in 1871; his business became especially well known for society portraiture. Taber’s clientele and assignments reflected his considerable reputation: he photographed King Kalākaua of Hawaii, operated one of San Francisco’s premier photographic establishments, and was later selected for major international photographic work. His personal life is also unusually well documented for a 19th-century photographer: he married Annie Slocomb in 1871, and the couple had two daughters, Daisy and Louise; numerous photographs of Taber, his wife, his daughters, and their Oakland home survive today in the Bancroft Library’s Taber Family collection. Taber’s career effectively ended when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed his studio and enormous archive of glass negatives, a particularly important loss to California photographic history. This photograph dates to circa 1885. SOLD
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