Item No: #307721 Chinese Quarter, S. F., Cal. Isaiah W. Taber.
Chinese Quarter, S. F., Cal.

Chinese Quarter, S. F., Cal.

Taber, Isaiah W.

Notes: A remarkable Chinatown street view. The street is virtually empty of people, in part because they have blurred out due to the long exposure. Taber set his camera on the cement sidewalk (the street is still cobblestone) on the shady side of the street. He seems to have been particularly interested in the signs for the businesses. In the immediate foreground is a bright white sign for a shop selling gold and silver articles. Other signs advertise tea rooms, rice shops, and dimly across the top of the image, a sign for a grocery store with a list of products offered: oil, cigarettes, tea, wine, seafood, and rice.

On closer examination, the two brightest signs, for the gold and silver emporium and the rice shop, have been written on the negative. This suggests that Taber, like Carleton Watkins, may have had a Chinese darkroom assistant, or that he knew a Chinese photographer who was capable of writing on the negative (in reverse!) in Chinese. The fluency of the strokes used to make the characters argue against simply copying text that was too faint to read in the negative.

This image, on an album page, is backed with another Taber image, The Seal Rocks Near Cliff House, San Francisco.

Albumen silver prints on thin photographic paper, roughly 4-7/8 by 7-3/4 inches, on a slightly larger mount.

Edition + Condition: Some softness to the print on the left edge, small crack to the mount, else a fine example.

Publication: San Francisco: Taber Photo. (ca. 1890).

Item No: #307721

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