[Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, full-length portrait, standing, facing left, with arm around young Quentin Roosevelt, who is seated on back of chair]

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Edith Roosevelt stands at full length in this c1903 portrait by Frances Benjamin Johnston, one arm around her young son Quentin, who perches on the back of a chair beside her. The pose is informal for its era, a mother and child caught in a relaxed moment rather than a formal sitting. Johnston, one of the most prominent women photographers of the period, was known for lively, natural-looking portraits of public figures, and this picture shows the White House family in that easygoing style. Quentin was a small boy when it was taken, and he would later become the youngest of the Roosevelt sons to die in the First World War.

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