Charleston photographers, Studio portraitists
Charles J. Quinby
The proprietor of the King Street gallery where Charleston went to be photographed in the spring of secession. Mary Chesnut sat for him and hated the result; Edmund Ruffin sat for him and could not keep up with the demand for the prints.
Quinby was born at White Plains, New York, on 29 February 1832 and began as a daguerreotypist in New York City in the 1850s. In February 1857 he came to Charleston as successor to the Tyler & Co. gallery at 233 King Street.
He had ambitions beyond one storefront. An advertisement that autumn described the firm as manufacturers and importers of photographic goods, with a factory at Waterbury, Connecticut and galleries in Charleston, Augusta and on Broadway. By 1861 the Quinby Photograph and Fine Art Gallery had moved to 261 King Street, in the middle of the business district.
After the war he returned to White Plains, where he died on 13 March 1920.
The Charleston connection
In late March 1861 Mary Boykin Chesnut recorded a friend at her door: come with us to Quinby’s, everybody will be there, to be photographed is the rage just now. She went, and thought her likeness uglier than ever — her husband’s very good, hers like a washerwoman’s.
Edmund Ruffin sat there too, in the days after he pulled the lanyard on the morning of 12 April. On 18 April he noted in his diary that Quinby was having trouble meeting the demand for his likeness, and took it as evidence of his own celebrity. He also compared the two galleries: Cook, he thought, was the superior artist, but his cards at fifty cents were not as good as Quinby’s at twenty-five.
The gallery’s backmark does work no biography can. It is often the only evidence of who made a surviving Charleston portrait, and for collectors it is frequently the difference between an identified image and an anonymous one.
War service and standing
None recorded.
Process and equipment
A full-service gallery: portraits in every current format, and the apparatus and chemistry to make them, imported and manufactured by the firm itself.
Attribution
A Quinby & Co. imprint means the firm sold the picture. It does not always mean the firm made it: the Library of Congress holds a stereograph of Institute Hall published by Quinby & Co. at 261 King Street whose photography it attributes, on Harvey Teal’s authority, to Osborn & Durbec.
Career
- 1832Born at White Plains, New York, 29 February. Davis & Melton 2020
- 1857Comes to Charleston in February as successor to Tyler & Co. at 233 King Street. Davis & Melton 2020
- 1857Advertises as manufacturer and importer of photographic goods, with galleries at Charleston, Augusta and New York. Davis & Melton 2020
- 1861The gallery is at 261 King Street; Mary Chesnut and Edmund Ruffin sit for portraits. Davis & Melton 2020
- 1920Dies at White Plains, New York, 13 March. Davis & Melton 2020
Do not confuse with
- Quinby & Co. the firm — The business outlived the proprietor’s Charleston years and took George N. Barnard in as a partner between 1868 and 1871.
Working locations
- Quinby & Co.No. 233 King Street · 1857–1861Located to a stretch of one street
- Quinby Photograph and Fine Art Gallery261 King Street · 1861–1871Located to the block or named intersection
Where the work is
- Library of Congress A hand-colored ambrotype of an unidentified Confederate soldier by Quinby & Co., AMB/TIN no. 3791, and the Institute Hall stereograph the firm published.
See also
George Smith Cook Frederick Eugene Durbec George N. Barnard
Statement by statement
Every material claim on this page, with its standing and its source. A statement the record does not support is shown as unavailable rather than filled in.
- AttributedBorn 29 February 1832 at White Plains, New York; died there 13 March 1920.Davis & Melton 2020
- VerifiedSucceeded to the Tyler & Co. gallery at 233 King Street in February 1857.Davis & Melton 2020
- VerifiedThe gallery was at 261 King Street by 1861 — printed on the firm’s mounts and confirmed independently by Ford’s 1861 census, which lists Charles J. Quinby at No. 261 King Street, west side, Ward 4.Davis & Melton 2020 Library of Congress Ford, Census of the City of Charleston, 1861
- VerifiedMary Boykin Chesnut and Edmund Ruffin both sat for the gallery in 1861.Davis & Melton 2020
Sources
- Stephen Davis and Jack W. Melton Jr., 100 Significant Civil War Photographs: Charleston in the War (Charleston: Historical Publications LLC, 2020).
- Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/
- Harvey S. Teal, Partners with the Sun: South Carolina Photographers, 1840–1940 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001).
- Frederick A. Ford, Census of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, for the Year 1861, Illustrated by Statistical Tables, Prepared under the Authority of the City Council (Charleston, 1861). The street lists give, for every house on every street, the number, the owner and the occupant. https://archive.org/details/censusofcityofch00char