Image of CS General Robert E. Lee, attributed to famous CS photographer George S. Cook

This is another interesting piece being offered, it is a war-time image of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It is on thin paper and measures 10” x 7” and the reverse is blank. It is attributed to the famous Confederate photographer George S. Cook (see bottom right of image).

George Smith Cook (February 23, 1819 – November 27, 1902) was a prominent early American photographer. He ran a gallery in New Orleans, then for ten years traveled throughout the South. He would establish a studio in a town, train photographers, then sell the studio to them and move on. He finally settled permanently in Charleston, South Carolina and recorded the effect of the Civil War on the city.

He captured the first combat photograph ever taken during a visit to Fort Sumter of Union ironclads firing on Fort Moultrie. He relocated with his family to Richmond in 1880, and found a city caught between the old and the new: Richmond bustled with post-Civil War construction and economic enterprise even while it held onto the antebellum social and political order.

The Cook Studio’s more than 10,000 negatives and prints that visually documented Richmond at the turn of the 20th century was acquired by the Valentine Museum in 1954. This piece would look great in a nice frame.