Young Girl With Poodle

Young girl with poodle, location unknown, c. 1920.

This is the June image from my new Vintage New Zealand 2019 calendar; see previous posts for a special offer on this publication. The calendar draws on my own small collection of historical photographs. Very few of the photo prints and glass plates that have come my way have any documentation, so for most we must rely on internal evidence – also known as what’s-in-the-photo, and usually a case of one picture being worth a thousand words.

A simple, back garden image, this has already had favourable comment. It has only lately dawned on me that this young girl may well be related to the youngsters on the calendar cover, as there is a familial likeness with the cover girl, especially. The picture is a hard one to date accurately, and the clues I have used are her hair style (from 1915? Ribbon is earlier) and the patterns printed near her neckline (1925?).  The Bentwood chair is a nice touch considering the rough exterior of the house behind, but is no help in establishing a date, as its design goes back to the 1860s.

The diagonal streak on the left side most likely indicates chemical contamination as the plate was moved from developer bath to fixer solution, in processing. It is not uncommon to see ancient fingerprints and tong marks on early photos, caused by poor handling in developing, but whether such defects relate to the negative or only the print isn’t easily answered without a good look at the original negative. In this case, it’s on the plate.