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[Unidentified man, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right] – Historic Photo Reproduction

[Unidentified man, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right], [between 1849 and 1860] — historic photograph
[Unidentified man, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right], [between 1849 and 1860]. Historic photograph from the Daguerreotypes & Early Photography collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

This rare historic photograph captures [Unidentified man, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right] in remarkable detail. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

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[Unidentified man, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right]

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Shown in three-quarter profile facing right, this sixth-plate daguerreotype is a small, intimate portrait of an unidentified man, made sometime between 1849 and 1860. Its most telling feature is the label on the cover glass, which uses a racial term of the period alongside a partial date. Such labels record how others classified a sitter, not how he described himself, and with no name attached, the label is one of the few clues to who he was. The photographer is not documented. The attribution to Barnes rests on a reference by researcher John Craig to an identified daguerreotype stamped with that name, so it should be treated as tentative.

Created / published[between 1849 and 1860]
Medium1 photograph : sixth-plate daguerreotype.
GenreN.Y. Gift; Anthony Barboza; 1999; (DLC/PP-1999:022). Forms part of: Daguerreotype collection (Library of Congress)."
SubjectsLabel on cover glass: Mullatto (sic) 50-- Photographer attribution based on John Craig's reference to an identified daguerreotype stamped Barnes
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan4,920 × 6,112 px · prints to 16 × 20 in at 300 dpi
Reference447_Unidentified_man_headan_1849

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