Sunshine, by Joshua Smith, 1883

This cabinet card photo, created by Joshua Smith, Chicago, Illinois, is a composite image that shows the faces of over fifty smiling and laughing children.

A commentator in the "Notes" section of The Photographic Times and American Photographer, vol. 13 (June 1883): 261, gave this unenthusiastic appraisal of this photo and another one by Smith: "'Sunshine' and 'Showers' are the appropriate names of two groups of baby faces, in which it seems as if the artist-photographer, Mr. Joshua Smith, of Chicago, has shown every possible shade of infantile expression of joy or grief."

Smith evidently compiled a number of these kinds of composite photos of children. For more information, see If You've Got It, Flaunt It!, a May 22, 2009, posting on the Shades of the Departed blog.

For the backmark on the reverse of this cabinet card photo, see Smith's Studio of Photography, Chicago, Illinois: