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[Unidentified copy of a painting showing a man, head-and-shoulders portrait, full face] – Historic Photograph Print

[Unidentified copy of a painting showing a man, head-and-shoulders portrait, full face], [between 1840 and 1860] — historic photograph
[Unidentified copy of a painting showing a man, head-and-shoulders portrait, full face], [between 1840 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

A window into the past: [Unidentified copy of a painting showing a man, head-and-shoulders portrait, full face], preserved in this historic photograph. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

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[Unidentified copy of a painting showing a man, head-and-shoulders portrait, full face]

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Rather than a sitter facing the lens, this daguerreotype reproduces an older oil portrait, so the head-and-shoulders pose and full-face angle reflect the painter's conventions as much as the photographer's. The record tentatively names the sitter as William C. C. Claiborne, the first governor of Louisiana after statehood in 1812, though the identification is unconfirmed. Claiborne died in 1817, so if the attribution holds, this is a copy made decades after his lifetime, a practice that let families reproduce treasured likenesses in the 1840s and 1850s. The photographer is unknown, and the hand coloring on the small silvered plate is worth noticing as an attempt to add warmth to a medium that was otherwise monochrome.

Created / published[between 1840 and 1860]
Medium1 photograph : sixth plate daguerreotype, hand-colored.
GenrePortrait photographs 1840-1860.Daguerreotypes 1840-1860.
NotesPhotographer unidentified. Possibly William C. C. Claiborne, Governor of Louisiana. Case: Rinhart 124. Source unknown. Forms part of: Daguerreotype collection (Library of Congress).
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan3,288 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi
Reference336_Unidentified_copy_of_a_1840

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