Daguerreotypes

Welcome to a series of pages featuring a collection of antique photography that I've assembled over several decades. We'll be looking at three groupings – Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes and Tintypes. (Under Tintypes, I'll talk a little about related items and the collection as a whole.) Rather than write a long treatise here at the beginning, I'll make comments as we go along, using the collection to illustrate several points.

We'll begin with daguerreotypes.

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Image is 2.75" width x 3.25" height

I call this daguerreotype "The Gentleman from Maine" because the dealer from whom I bought it spent every summer buying in Maine. Plus, he's my idea of the quintessential 19th century New Englander!

In all the years I've been collecting, I've never come across a daguerreotype in as pristine condition. To handle this case is to experience it just as the gentleman did when he received it new. Most daguerreotype cases were covered in leather, like this one. (Later, they would be covered with a paper that convincingly simulated leather.) With years of handling, the two halves - which were hinged with leather - would often wear apart into two pieces. Once that happened, more damage was bound to occur. If you happen to have a case that's still in one piece, a little neatsfoot oil will keep the leather supple.

Daguerreotype cases took a lot of abuse through the years. In the 1920s, younger people would sometimes discard the daguerreotype altogether and use the holder as a nifty cigarette case. Who knows how much history has been lost for the sake of a good smoke!

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Images are 2.75" width x 3.25" height

I call this May-December pair "The 1849 Couple." That's because the gentleman is wearing the same style of collar and tie that President James Knox Polk did when he presided over the 1849 Mexican War. The gentleman's young wife is corseted to an alarmingly tight degree!

Pres. James K. Polk, 1849

You'll often see a daguerreotype covered with what seems to be hundreds of little scratches. Look again, and you might notice that the "scratches" are doubled, meaning that they're merely dust reflected from the outer glass.

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An alternative to the leather case was an upgrade to what was called a "gutta percha" case. Gutta percha is a natural rubber from the Malaysian gutta percha plant, seen below. In fact, according to the George Eastman House, the gutta percha case was nothing of the sort. It was actually an early shellac-based plastic dating to 1854. (I will continue to refer to cases on this page and the pages about ambrotypes and tintypes as "gutta percha" because that's the term commonly used by dealers and collectors.)

Image is 2" width x 2.5" height

You'll notice that all of the cases so far, and the ones that follow, have simple, undecorated brass frames. The designs on the velvets are relatively simple, too. That's an indication that they're early daguerreotypes, probably dating from the 1840s to the mid-1850s. Of course the most obvious way to date a daguerreotype, aside from an inscription, is by the style of clothing. This gentleman is decidedly pre-Civil War.

If you look to the right of this young man, you'll notice some very fine lines. These are not aging or damage per se, but rather marks that were made when the silver surface of the daguerreotype was burnished with a cloth, right before the exposure.

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As you can see, the cases could also be a rich chocolaty brown. Gutta percha cases were popular right before the Civil War, so they started appearing with patriotic themes. People called them "union cases," and this is a fine example of a union case. The medallion is inscribed with a line from Henry "Light-Horse Harry'" Lee's famous eulogy of Washington - "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen."

Image is 2.75" width x 3.25" height

I've always imagined that this rugged gentleman might have been a sea captain.

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Image is 2.75" width x 3.25" height

Here's a freckle-faced fellow who looks as though he's ready to take any dare. He came with only half a damaged daguerreotype case, but what a treat it is! Apparently our young friend was an avid reader of lurid dime novels, and for some reason he pasted a page into the case. The hero of the story is nearly scalped and exclaims, "Good heavens!"

Now, take a good look into this young man's eyes. You'll notice from the reflection that he was sitting in a room with a very large window. That's a good indication that he went to a well-established photographic studio. In those days, the long exposure time required a lot of natural light, so studios would usually have large windows. Occasionally the window would be on an angled wall, not unlike a partial greenhouse. I've created an illustration to show how it might have appeared.

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Image is 2.75" width x 3.25" height

The brass frame in this case indicates that it's a very early image. The brass is a heavy gauge of metal, and the oval decoration is engraved. As daguerreotypes progressed, the brass frames became thin, and their decorations were embossed.

I would cast this boy, with his handsome velvet jacket, as the hero of a Dickens novel. I look at him and wonder whether he survived the Civil War. He would have been about 20 in 1860.

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Image is 2" width x 2.5" height

This image is not original to its case. I know that as a fact, but in any case, I don't think the more elaborate velvet matches the age of the brass frame. Notice that the last two boys have worn their jackets buttoned at the top and bottom, with the other buttons undone, an interesting fashion statement.

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Not all daguerreotype cases were made of leather or gutta percha. I've seen beautiful (though badly damaged) cases made from paper maché, and then there's this lovely velvet case. The metal plaque is inscribed "Souvenir," and the case opens by depressing a button. It has the look and feel of a fine jewelry box.

Image is 2.75" width x 3.25" height

The white material is a ribbed satin. The gentleman's name was William R. Mann.

To put this image in proper perspective, when William R. Mann was born in 1823, there had been only five U. S. presidents, Lafayette was on a tour of the country, and Beethoven was releasing his 9th Symphony.

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Image is 2" width x 2.5" height

I'll continue to add to the gallery as I acquire new pieces. I bought the above image as I was preparing this page. The daguerreotype, its brass frame and the glass that went over both, were all sealed by the photographer with a fine paper that went around the edges. That was to keep the daguerreotype from darkening through oxidation, and it was a normal practice. Nonetheless, in the ensuing 160 years, the seal decayed, the image oxidized, and that's why you see a dark halo around the frame.

I have consulted a Web site called measuringworth.com, which says that one dollar in 1850 (the approximate date of this daguerreotype) would have been worth $27.29 in 2007's currency. That would mean that the lady bought her daguerreotype for the equivalent of about $6.82. That still seems low considering all the exotic materials, but don't forget that such portraits were a huge fad, and that thousands upon thousands of these were sold.

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In the early 1990s, Martha A. Sandweiss, curator of Amherst College's Mead Art Museum, was inventorying a storage vault. There she found "ten small bundles carefully wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine." They hadn't been opened in over 40 years. To her astonishment, when she unwrapped them she found daguerreotypes of the greatest Americans from the 1840s, including Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. I like how Martha Sandweiss describes what it feels like to discover a long-lost daguerreotype of President Jackson:

"I unwrapped one and then opened the daguerreotype case I found inside. There was Andrew Jackson, staring with calm resignation at the face of death.

The image was familiar from many reproductions. It was on April 15, 1845, at the Hermitage, his plantation home near Nashville, Tennessee, that Andrew Jackson, seventy-eight, last posed for his photographer. Gravely ill and in constant pain, the ex-president and military hero had to be propped upright with pillows. Two months later, he was dead. The best of the portraits from the session was engraved for a popular image of Old Hickory as he appeared "in his last days." Then the original, haunting portrait disappeared.

Daguereotypes are magical things. On the shiny silver-coated surface of a copper plate, finely delineated photographic images seem preserved as if by alchemy. While images on paper can be printed in countless numbers from an original negative, each daguerreotype is unique, a direct positive made without the mediating agency of a negative. When I cradled the great missing portrait of Jackson in my hands, I held the plate that Jackson had actually gazed at through the camera lens on that long ago afternoon at the Hermitage. The light reflected off his face had impressed his image forever on the sheet of metal."
 

Martha A. Sandweiss' find

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The next page in this series is about ambrotypes.

I hope you'll join me there for more interesting images!