Not long after Benguiat moved to California, a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner wrote: “The picturesque figure, the red fez and black beard of Hadji Ephraim Benguiat, Turkish Jew, dealer in Oriental rugs, is familiar in the streets of San Francisco.” Hadji had a flair for business and for the dramatic. He sometimes donned traditional garb to appeal to the public’s fascination with “exotic” Eastern cultures, as in this striking and deliberately stylized studio portrait.