In 1922, Imogen Cunningham and her husband Roi Partridge stayed at the home of Flora and Edward Weston. While Partridge was working on an exhibition of his etchings, Cunningham joined Margrethe Mather and Edward Weston in their studio next to Weston’s home, and took a series of portraits of the two cohorts. The photograph being offered was Cunningham’s favorite of the day.

Weston wrote in his Daybooks that Mather was ''the first important person'' in his life. They met in 1913 in the Los Angeles area at a time Weston was married with children and ran a portrait studio on the grounds of his home. Mather meanwhile, was a freethinking self-taught photographer who travelled in a bohemian circle of artists, writers, and actors, many of whom were advocates of social and political change. First she was his model, but as with Tina Modotti, she soon became his artistic collaborator, and in 1921 Weston and Mather went as far as both signing a group of photographs that came out of the Glendale studio.

The present lot artfully shows Edward Weston draped in shadow, veiling his expression, with Mather leaning back upon his shoulder - temple, hair and hands captured as delicate highlights.