Is This Robert Johnson?

Until now, there are only two known photographs of country blues giant Robert Johnson. Now Getty Images claims to have authenticated a third photograph. The new photo was bought in 2005 by Zeke Schein, a classical guitarist, on eBay, where it was wrongly advertised as a photo of B. B. King. He is said to have donated it to Getty. The photograph has now been restored, but it's not clearly exactly how they authenticated it. There is no date stamped on the photo. I'll update you when I find out more details.

Photo by Robert Johnson Estate/Hutton Archives/Getty Images

The photo purports to be Johnson, on the left, standing next to bluesman Johnny Shines. The case for it being authentic is a 2007 analysis by a Houston forensic expert, Lois Gibson, who compared it to the two existing pictures and claimed that the feature placement was identical. Johnson is known to have long, thin fingers and one eye slightly smaller than the other.

On the other hand, blues expert Bill Dahl claims it is a fake (see the comments section attached to this article). He says that when the late David “Honeyboy” Edwards, who was a friend of both Johnson and Shines, was shown the photo, he said, “Who is that?”