Bust-length oval vignette studio portrait of virtuoso mandolinist and composer Samuel Adelstein. Albumen carte de visite (CDV). San Francisco, California: Thors, 1889. Photographer's 1025 Larkin St. imprint to mount recto. 

VERSO ILLUSTRATED AND INSCRIBED BY ADELSTEIN: "Miss May Shannon / [B sharp]  / Never [B flat] / Always [B natural] / Souvenir D'Amitié / With Best Wishes / Samuel Adelstein / 7/10/89."

A witty and rare musical presentation portrait depicting the young San Francisco mandolin virtuoso Samuel Adelstein (1862-1938). Posed in a sharp oval vignette wearing a dark double-breasted lounge suit, high collar, patterned ascot tie, and stickpin, Adelstein turns in a dignified three-quarter profile gaze. On the reverse, Adelstein penned a delightful musical pun across three hand-drawn musical staves utilizing sharp, flat, and natural musical accidentals to spell out his sentiment: "Be sharp / Never Be flat / Always Be natural."

Adelstein was one of the foremost pioneer concert mandolinists and luteists in the United States. Active in San Francisco from the 1880s, Adelstein helped launch the late-19th-century American mandolin craze, co-founding the Pacific Coast's first mandolin ensemble ("La Lyra de Orfeo") and publishing some of the earliest American pedagogical methods and compositions for the instrument before embarking on acclaimed concert tours across Europe, Egypt, and Japan.

Louis Thors (1845–1912) was one of San Francisco's premier late-19th-century portrait photographers, catering to prominent California society, theater performers, and musicians from his elegant Larkin Street and later Sutter Street galleries.

[Samuel Adelstein, Mandolin, Mandolinists, Classical Music, Sheet Music, Musical Notation, San Francisco California, California Musicians, Gilded Age, Victorian Puns] [Photography, Early Photography, Historic Photography, Carte-de-Visite, CDV, Albumen Photographs, Louis Thors, Thors Studio, San Francisco Photographers]

Very good condition overall, displaying warm tones and fine clarity across the oval vignette. The mount is clean and solid, showing only faint corner rounding and light age toning along the extreme margins. The verso remains bright and fully legible, with exceptionally crisp penmanship and musical notation.