? George Rodger/Magnum Photos
Thomas Rodger Senior and an Unknown Violinist
about 1855
- Scottish Art
Thomas Rodger senior, the figure on the left, was a house painter by trade. He nevertheless wholeheartedly supported his son in his photographic work. Father and son lived in Fife and were very close. The antics in this picture may have been inspired by David Wilkie's painting, 'The Blind Fiddler' (1806), where a boy pretends he is a fiddler with bellows and a poker. Legend has it that the violinist in this albumen print was Paganini himself, but the latter had died ten years earlier.
