What Light Through Yonder Window?

To say that this image is rare is to be understating things a bit. This is, in fact, Lloyd himself twisting himself into a less than relaxing-looking position. His brother, Dr. Houston Mifflin, tripped the shutter (as he'd done so often in almost all the shots in which Lloyd appears). Rather than documenting cows, trees, rocks, bushes, the river, and clouds for an upcoming painting, Lloyd needed this reference for a painting he was planning to submit to the Art Club of Philadelphia in 1892. It would be Lloyd's version of the oft-depicted subject of Greek mythology, Endymion—a various handsome Aeolian shepherd, hunter, or king who was said to rule and live at Olympia in Elis. This same character is often seen with his lover, Selene, the moon goddess. We don't know if Lloyd included Selene in his rendition as we have no visual reference to compare.

After Lloyd's death, it was suggested that the Minich sisters came across a number of glass plate negatives showing a nude male figure. They wouldn't have seen these images in a positive format, only in negative form, which means it would've been hard to know if Lloyd was the subject, or some other male. This is likely why a rumor circulated for a short period of time that Lloyd may have been gay. That fact alone is neither here nor there, but my personal conclusion is that the sisters likely came across these glass plates negatives and assumed the most extreme of conclusions, when all along they were most likely other visual references of Lloyd alone destined for other paintings. In any case, the sisters dared not take any chances to embarrass Lloyd and they had the emulsion scraped from the glass where they ended up as window glass for a greenhouse. Oh, the tantalizing sensibilities of the Victorian Age. How many other images were lost to such tawdry interpretations?

/ This image courtesy of the Franklin & Marshal Archives & Special Collections.