This cabinet card features three children, likely siblings, posing for their portrait at a photographic gallery in Polotsk, Belarus. The young girl in the photograph is holding a ball held inside netting. Perhaps a visitor to the cabinet card gallery can provide more details about this toy. The previous owner of this cabinet card is from St. Petersburg, Russia. He has provided the photographers location, as well as the photographers name, Bernstein. He also contends that the way that the subjects are dressed in this image, indicates that they are scouts. In addition, the previous owner also asserts that the photographer of this image was Jewish. In fact, research reveals that the population of Polotsk in 1897 was over 20,000, and more than half of those residents were Jewish. There was a strong Orthodox Jewish community there. The “Jewish Virtual Library” indicates that in the late nineteenth century, the city became embroiled in anti-Jewish agitation.
This Russian cabinet card is a portrait of a uniformed Russian sailor and his wife. The reverse of the card has an inscription in Russian which states “In good memory for dear Ivan Afansevich and Agrippa Petrovna, from Maria and Aleksandr Limonnivov”. The inscription is dated January 30th, 1906.
This Cabinet card comes from the estate of a Jewish family. The photograph is an image of a Jewish family in Minsk, Russia. The parents and children are dressed up nicely for their visit to the photographers studio. Note the footwear and the young boy’s hat.
THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 