A possible new photograph of Joseph Lytle Russell?

All readers here will be familiar with the portrait of Joseph Lytle (sometimes Lytel) Russell that was taken in the 1850s. It appeared to be the only picture in existance. Because of potential copyright issues with some sources we are reproducing as our main picture below a line drawing of Joseph.

Drawing by BK and AG as found in Separate Identity volume one, 
reproduced with permission.

But now a possible second picture may have been discovered, taken much later in Joseph’s life.                                                                                                
Eagle-eyed collector, Zions Herald, noticed a portrait picture on the wall on the right in this picture of the Pittsburgh Bible House parlor. Whose picture was this?

The original glass negative of this photograph is owned by Brian. The grain as seen below was on the original 5 x 7 inch glass plate negative. Using 12,800 dpi scanning and some Photoshop manipulation, he was able to rescue the picture below.

  

How does it compare with the early known photograph of Joseph? Both Bernhard and Brian have made careful comparisons of faces. But as the original sitters are seen from different angles, along with the passage of time and the camouflage of a rather bushy beard, conclusive identification is difficult. There has been quite some discussion before posting this and the end result still has to be that we don’t really know. But here is one of the grids to attempt to line up key features.

What does seem apparent is that the picture from the parlor has someone holding a volume of Millennial Dawn. Comparing the covers of the editions of Millennial Dawn from that era, the most likely candidate in the photograph is volume 4, The Day of Vengeance. If this is so, then this book was published in 1897 (announced in September, official forward dated October) and it was on December 17 of that year that Joseph Lytle, now back in Pittsburgh, died.

Ultimately, the key question to ask is: if this is not Joseph Lytle, who else could it be? This person was important enough to CTR that he chose to have their framed photograph on his wall. None of the male members of his family supported him. Nearly all his early associates eventually chose different paths, and anyway, their pictures and identities have been well established. It is none of them. The person in the photograph is in the right age group.

Bernhard has suggested that it might be a picture of Henry Weber, the well-trusted Vice President of the Society from 1892-1904 (his death). There is only one photograph of Weber we know, which is taken from the 1900 book American Florist (Henry was a horticulturist). Although published in 1900, we don’t know when the photograph was taken.

But in 1897, the year for the Millennial Dawn volume, Weber was 62 and Joseph Lytle 84. What age best fits the picture on the parlor wall? I obviously WANT it to be JLR. What do others readers think?

In MY book we have here a new photograph of Joseph Lytle Russell.

Possibly…

(With grateful thanks to Zions Herald, Brian and Bernhard, whose discussion on what started life as just a throwaway query has been most interesting. To paraphrase a phrase from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, like Topsy it just growed.)