C1895 ANTIQUE CABINET CARD O. P. SCHEXNAYDER EDGARD, LOUISIANA AFRICAN AMERICANA
Item History & Price
CABINET PORTRAIT: O. P. Schexnayder, Photographer. Original cabinet card with raised border design, c1895. Measures 6 " x 4 1/4"; image mounted to card, dimensions: 3 3/4" x 2 3/4": unidentified African American girl in Victorian dress, earrings, and period hairstyle. Slight agewear, spotting, some separation at foredges; pinholes along right side suggest the photograph was pinned up on a wall and taken down several times, at one point hurriedly removed, with a couple short close...d tears running from holes to fore-edge. Olidé P. Schexnayder (1871-1944) was of German descent, born in the rural community of Edgard, Louisiana. He began making photographs in the early 1890s, offering "Portrait, Copying and Enlarging, Crayon, Oil, India Ink, Water Color and Pastel a Specialty". Many of his photographs feature family members and document details of rural life: a doctor's housecall, his mother with a holiday turkey, school children and babies, pets, and family picnics. Schexnayder also photographed African Americans in the community. He married Martha Alice Vial in 1905, and the couple moved to Lone Star Plantation in Luling. Soon after this, Schexnayder abandoned a photographic career and became an optician. - Louisiana State Museum Collections
