Born in Bavaria, Bernard Moses came to Louisiana with his parents, three brothers, and four sisters. When Bernard’s father, Samuel, a chemist, visited in Paris during the early 1840s he met Daguerre. From Daguerre he learned the new photographic process and purchased a camera and necessary chemicals and equipment.

Upon settling in New Orleans, Samuel Moses opened a photographic studio in 1849 on Royal Street and a year later moved to the corner of Poydras and Camp Streets. He taught all four of his sons the novel technology with Bernard and Gustave pursuing the most successful careers as photographers. Gustave’s children, Harry Leon and William H., continued the family tradition in the G. Moses & Sons studio. Because New Orleans, like other nineteenth-century cities, suffered from frequent fires, firemen (all volunteers until 1892) were important community figures. The State Museum has an extensive collection of Bernard and Gustave Moses photographs, as well as four additional oil paintings by Bernard.

Bernard Moses trained as a portrait artist in Europe, continued to develop in New Orleans. Moses’s painting of Captain Samuel Levy shows the fireman in his ceremonial uniform holding a silver horn.