Portrait of an Unknown Man with Muttonchop Whiskers

This picture was photographed by the talented amateur photographer Harriet V. S. Thorne (1843-1926), a member of the New York Camera Club, many of whose photographs were donated to the Connecticut Historical Society’s Museum and Library by The Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation (Acquisition: 2011.344.147).

Although the photograph in the Connecticut Historical Society and Museum is unlabelled, the picture is stylistically right for a work by Muller-Ury painted between 1900 and 1905 and its presence with six other pictures by the artist photographed by Thorne between those dates makes it highly probable that it was painted by him and evidently not by other artists in the Thorne collection: August Franzen, Arthur von Ferraris, Louis Loeb, Henry Stanley Todd and George Chickering Munzig. There are other pictures unquestionably by Muller-Ury in the Thorne collection which are unlabelled either as by him (Charles Munhall Schwab, Mabel Dodge Luhan) and/or his sitters (Charles Munhall Schwab, Mrs William Erhardt).

The editor has included it here in the hope that evidence will come to light that confirms the attribution.