Daguerreotype portrait of an unidentified man – Vintage Wall Art
(Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
Step back in time with Daguerreotype portrait of an unidentified man, a historic photograph rich in period detail. It is part of the Snapshots of the Past archive, gathered over 25 years of research.
Order it framed and ready to hang, or unframed to match a frame you already love. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Since 2001, Snapshots of the Past has shipped historic prints to tens of thousands of customers around the world.
Daguerreotype portrait of an unidentified man
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Few details survive about the sitter of this 1844 daguerreotype, since the record names him only as an unidentified man. What it does offer is a direct look at one of the earliest practical photographic processes. Daguerreotypes were made on silvered copper plates, polished to a mirror and sensitized with iodine and bromine vapors, then developed over heated mercury. Each plate produced a single, unique image rather than a negative that could be copied, and the picture had to be viewed at an angle to reveal its positive tones. Portraits from this period required sitters to hold still for seconds or even minutes in bright sunlight, which explains the stiff, serious expressions common in images like this one.
| Created / published | 1844 |
|---|---|
| Original scan | 3,300 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | 457_Unidentified_man_headan_1844 |
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Snapshots of the Past helps heritage brands, museums, historians and storytellers tell stories with history: historic prints, image licensing and historical storytelling drawn from more than 25 years of research and curation.
