Interior Chinese restaurant, San Francisco

The objectphotographed as held, uncropped

Catalogue description

Several men are gathered at a table in a carved and panelled dining room, two of them holding fans, with a vase of flowering branches on a stand behind and further tables receding into the room. The men look toward the camera; the pose is arranged.

Unlike TFA-CA-113, this interior is occupied, and the occupation is the subject. The men are patrons or staff of the restaurant, posed at a table for a photographer who has brought a camera into their room.

Read against the studio portraits in this collection, the difference is instructive. In the studio the sitter is placed against a painted backdrop chosen by the photographer. Here the setting is the sitters’ own — their room, their table, their city.

Transcriptiontext on the object, as printed

WATKINS’ NEW SERIES
Of Pacific Coast Views, 427 Montgomery Street, S. F.
Photographic Views of California, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Lower Cal., and the Pacific Coast, embracing Yo Semite, Big Trees, Geysers, Mount Shasta Mining, City, etc., etc.  Views made to order in any part of the State or Coast.
3764
Interior Chinese restaurant, S. F.

Historical context

Watkins’ New Series was assembled after the collapse of his earlier business, and his San Francisco subjects from this period were sold alongside his landscape work to tourists and to a national mail-order trade.

What is not known

• None of the men is identified, and whether they were patrons, proprietors or staff is not stated.
• The restaurant is not named on the object.
• Date range inferred from the New Series and the 427 Montgomery Street address.