Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

Masonic Scottish Rite Past Deputy Grand Master
ca. 1875
John F. Coonley (1830-1915)
USA: Tennessee, Memphis
Photograph on paper mounted on board
overall: 4-1/8"h x 2-1/2"w
Gift of Jacques Noel Jacobsen, Jr.
98.077.10

Sepia-tone carte-de-visite photographic portrait of unidentified bearded Past Grand Master and Scottish Rite Mason wearing jewels of a Past Deputy Grand Master and a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason; along bottom, imprinted "J.F. COONLEY, MEMPHIS."

Memphis photographer and artist John Frank Coonley (1830-1915) took this portrait of an unidentified man in a dark suit wearing three badges—one a Scottish Rite jewel, and a another a jewel that shows he was a Past Deputy Grand Master. Coonley, who also went by Jacob, worked by himself in Memphis for just a short time, between 1874 and 1876. Today he is remembered for the images he took of Civil War battlefields and construction projects, as well as scenes he captured of the Bahamas in the late 1800s.