The Preacher and the Circassian Slave
A popular clergyman gets more than he bargained for during a trip to a local photography studio.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A rather amusing scene occurred to a reverend gentleman who is a popular preacher. He went to have his likeness taken at a photographer's, and put on his surplice in an ante-room. When ushered into the manipulating-room, he was not a little disconcerted on seeing a Circassian beauty, in full costume, chained, and on her knees, her countenance expressing the pleadings of a broken-hearted girl being dragged before the Mussulman proprietor of a happy harem family. The reverend gentleman, as soon as he had recovered from his surprise, took an interest in the high art proceeding, and ventured to suggest that the veil fell too much across the face. 'Would you kindly show me what you mean!' The reverend gentleman was kind enough to do so. The flash of electricity was wickedly employed, for, to his horror it may be related, if he sees this anecdote, that the popular preacher has been taken in dramatic attitude with a Circassian slave appealing to him to release her from thraldom. This is a private studio joke, and will, doubtless, never go any further.
“The flash of electricity was wickedly employed, for, to his horror it may be related... that the popular preacher has been taken in dramatic attitude with a Circassian slave.”
This early 'photo-bomb' or studio prank highlights the obsession with Orientalist tropes and staged portraiture in the 19th century. Today, it serves as a bizarre historical snapshot of how Victorian-era photographers used elaborate staging to amuse their clients.
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