Self-Portrait

Solomon Nunes Carvalho, the son of a prominent Sephardic family in Charleston, South Carolina, had a career as both a painter and a photographer. While he was a distinguished portraitist, he also painted other subjects including his childhood synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. In the 1840s, Carvalho made daguerreotypes, and in 1853 and 1854, he accompanied General John C. Fremont as the official photographer for an expedition through the territories of Kansas, Colorado, and Utah. Carvalho subsequently had studios in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston and was active in the Jewish communities of those cities.