Little is known about the American photographer Paul Thompson. He ran a photo agency in the 1910s, when Belle Greene sat for him in her apartment (likely at 104 East 40th Street). He also documented World War I through his photographs.
This is the only known photograph of Belle Greene in one of her apartments (there is one additional photograph taken from the balcony of her apartment at 53 East 66th St—ARC 3297.2—though it does not depict Greene). The primary evidence that this photograph shows her apartment is a fragment of a print of this photograph—showing only the left side of the image, with Greene's legs visible—bearing an inscription on the verso in her hand reading, "the home of the "Loo" jades! — at home." Greene sent this fragment, as well as others depicting Chinese art in her apartment, to Bernard Berenson ca. June 1915.
This particular photograph was touched up with paint for newspaper reproduction.
“Belle of the Books,” Time, 11 April 1949, p. 77
With reproduction of ca. 1915 photograph of Belle da Costa Greene by Paul Thompson (1878–1940)
