Albumen Carte de Visite "Chas. E. Flandrau, at 57"
St. Paul, MN: C.A. Zimmerman, 1884. Very Good-. Item #49041
St. Paul, MN: C.A. Zimmerman Opposite Metropolitan Opera House, n.d. but ca. 1884 or 1885. Original albumen photograph (14x9.5cm) mounted to stiff grey card mount (16.5x11cm), facsimile signature of the sitter in image, photographer's information stamped in blind along bottom edge of mount. Margins rubbed and a bit worn at corners, some faint soiling to image, lengthy 20th century pencil annotations to verso. About Very Good.
Handsome portrait of Charles Eugene Flandrau (1828-1903), the famed Minnesota jurist and soldier. Trained at his father's New York law office, Flandrau only arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota Territory, in 1853 as a young member of the bar, only to find business there slow. Within a year he had resettled in Traverse des Sioux, a frontier village on the Minnesota River where he quickly became one of the town's leading members, serving as agent to the Sioux as well as on the territorial Council. By his late 20's he was appointed an associate justice on the territorial supreme court, a position he held for the next seven years. When the Sioux outbreak occurred in 1862, he turned soldier, commanding the voluntary commanders of New Ulm. By the time this photo was taken, Flandrau had returned to St. Paul, where he could establish a large law practice that would occupy him for the rest of his life.
This portrait most likely taken for the tourist trade by the French-born St. Paul photographer Charles A. Zimmerman, better known for his series of views of Minnehaha Falls.
Reference: DAB VI, pp. 455-6.
Price: $250.00