Walt Whitman by William Kuebler, Jr.?, Louis Kuebler?, ca. 1889

Kuebler Photography, at 1204 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, was co-owned and operated by brothers William, Jr. and Louis H. Kuebler. According to the 1890 Philadelphia city directory, William, Jr. lived at 864 41st Street, and Louis lived at 866 41st St.—also the address of William, Sr., an optician. The photo was taken in Whitman's room in Camden, and the photograph seen in the background is of John Addington Symonds, which Symonds sent to Whitman in 1889.

When asked by Horace Traubel what he thought of John White Alexander's oil portrait of Whitman (1889), Thomas Eakins replied, "Did you hear, that he finally made the picture from a photo?" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Thursday, May 14, 1891). William Rudolph O'Donovan explained that "the great difficulty was the hair—to give the sense of its mass yet also of its thinness." Judging by the pose and the position of the hair in this photograph, it appears that it may have been used as Alexander's study.

For more information on Kuebler Photography, see "Notes on Whitman's Photographers."