The Museum CollectionEdgar Allan Poe Portrait Owned by Elmira Royster Shelton
Front of Card
The embossed label at the bottom edge reads: "THE LEE GALLERY/ 920 MAIN STREET/ RICHMOND, VA." The Lee Gallery was one of many galleries which sold copies of the Oscar Halling portrait of Poe.
Back of Card
The inscription reads: "Poe's picture kept by/ Elmira Royster/ W[illiam] M Cobb 1950/ writing below probably/ Elmira Royster's" In a different handwriting: "Edgar A Poe."
Description: This albumen print photograph of Oscar Halling's ca.1868 pastel drawing of Edgar Allan Poe was once owned by Elmira Royster Shelton (1810-1888), the woman to whom Poe was engaged at the time of his death. A wealthy Richmond widow, Mrs. Shelton never remarried after Poe's death and is known to have owned at least one other photograph (an 1849 daguerreotype) of Poe. She would have acquired the present photograph almost twenty years after Poe's death.The photograph was presented to the Poe Museum, along with a daguerreotype of Mrs. Shelton, by her descendants in 1979. Search CollectionCategories
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