A 1910s strip of five studio portraits by Charles E. Kerfoot of Washington, D.C.

A strip of five studio portraits made in Washington, D.C. in the 1910s is mounted in a black cardboard frame with five tablet-shaped windows. The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture holds it, and its record describes the strip and the photographer's stamp on its frame.

The strip

The record names the photographer as Charles E. Kerfoot (1870 to 1937), and an embossed stamp in the bottom right corner of the frame reads "C.E. Kerfoot / 805 Penn Ave. N.W. / Washington, D.C." The five bust-length shots show one sitter in the same outfit, posed with different props: a mortarboard cap, a fan held in front of the chin, a frilly cartwheel hat, a small black fascinator with white feathers in front of an American flag, and black kid gloves with white trim. The expressions range from serious to a half-smile. This page does not name the sitter.

The frame

The strip is mounted inside a black cardboard frame whose five tablet-shaped windows divide the photographs. A rectangular, floral, embossed band surrounds the images, and the rest of the frame has thin, embossed vertical stripes. There is a large loss at the bottom left corner of the frame and a small surface loss at the top left corner. The back is gray, with a piece of cream paper covering the backs of the photographs. A pencil inscription on that paper is addressed from a sister to relatives, and the backing is slightly torn, with a line of brown adhesive across its bottom.

The record

Sources

• Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture record, object 2021.13.12 (https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2021.13.12); released by the Smithsonian Institution under CC0 through Smithsonian Open Access; the sitter's name is left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.