Photographer Napoleon Sarony wholeheartedly embraced the role of debonair eccentric. He adorned the outside of his studio with his name in letters that were several feet high, and he often strolled down Broadway wearing his signature fez and an elaborate uniform of his own making. His outsized personality and ability to convey an atmosphere of immediacy in his images made him New York City’s most heralded and sought-after portrait photographer throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.