Lesna / Van Norman. – Historic Reproduction
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
A window into the past: Lesna / Van Norman., preserved in this historic photograph. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Lesna / Van Norman.
Order a print
Thank you. Your order went through, and a receipt is on its way by email.
Secure checkout · SSL encryptedPowered by Stripe and PayPal
Free shipping in the lower 48 states. The checkout page shows the picture, size and price before you pay.
Titled simply "Lesna," this portrait places its sitter alongside a bicycle or tricycle, a pairing that was far less ordinary than it later became. Around 1898, the safety bicycle was reshaping leisure, travel and even women's fashion, and studio portraits like this one let riders show off their new machines as much as themselves. The photograph was made by Van Norman, a studio in Springfield, a city that was also home to major bicycle manufacturing in the same years. Studio cards of this kind were often as much about social status and modern style as about the person pictured.
| Created / published | c1898. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 photographic print. |
| Genre | Portrait photographs 1890-1900.Photographic prints 1890-1900. |
| Notes | Copyright by Van Norman Photo., Springfield. |
| Subjects | Bicycles & tricycles--1890-1900. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,008 × 1,536 px · prints to 3 × 5 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-170592 |
More from the Bicycles collection
Snapshots of the Past helps heritage brands, museums, historians and storytellers tell stories with history: historic prints, image licensing and historical storytelling drawn from more than 25 years of research and curation.
![[Norman Anderson on a racing bicycle, Nov. 5, 1914]](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/2f/2f138c7bc086-400.webp)
![Actresses as bicycle riders [7 illustrations of actresses with bicycles: 1. Effie Ellsler; 2. Cissy Fitzgerald; 3. Anna Held; 4. Queenie Vassar; 5. Mrs. James Brown Potter; 6. Miss Georgia Cayvan; 7. Miss Lillian Russell]](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/fb/fb4ffdff1d4f-400.webp)