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Eisenmann (right) and the Bateses (they are nearly 8 feet tall)

Toronto. … is a riff on a line on ancient maps signifying areas as yet unexplored As the photo at left shows, collectors of old photos may be able to complement their collections by visiting Michael Lehr’s auction today.

PHSC members may recall a  couple of presentation by the late Mike Mitchell. Michael spoke with us last in October of 2003. In each case he spoke on the NYC Victorian photographer Charles Eisenmann and his portraits of monsters/freaks in the gilded age.

During each presentation, Mike reported on the latest publication of his book (first published by Gage in 1979 and later expanded and published by ECW Press in 2003).

The auction by Michael Lehr today features this card of special interest. The text explanation says in part,”Eisenmann was a German immigrant who operated a photography studio at 289 Bowery in the 1881 to 1887, at the height of popularity of New York’s dime museums and sideshows. The Bowery was the circuit’s home base: cheap galleries, cheap tickets, and a steady stream of performers passing through the city between circus seasons. Eisenmann built his business photographing them.

“Among Eisenmann’s most photographed subjects were Martin Van Buren Bates and Anna Haining Swan. The 7 foot, 11 1/2 inch tall couple married in 1871 and toured for years as one of the era’s biggest draws: two of the tallest people ever documented, standing together. Bates, a Kentucky-born Confederate veteran and former schoolteacher, and Swan, a Nova Scotia native who had already been exhibited by P.T. Barnum, made a genuinely rare pairing, and audiences turned out for it. Eisenmann photographed them repeatedly and in different costumes, from formal evening dress to military-style uniforms meant to lend the sense of rank and authority that stage names like “Captain” and “Colonel” implied.

“This cabinet card is one of those sittings. It carries no photographer’s mark – it doesn’t need one. The towering figure, identified in a period pencil inscription as “Col. Barts,” and the woman beside him are recognizably the Bateses, and the man at right, bearded, in a long frock coat, hands folded, watching them rather than the camera, is Eisenmann himself.”