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[Thomas Hart Benton, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front] – Historic Photograph Print

[Thomas Hart Benton, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front], [between 1844 and 1858] — historic photograph
[Thomas Hart Benton, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front], [between 1844 and 1858]. 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

Few images capture their era like this historic photograph of [Thomas Hart Benton, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front]. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.

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[Thomas Hart Benton, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front]

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The name scratched on the back of this plate identifies the sitter as Thomas Hart Benton, the Missouri senator who spent three decades in Congress and championed westward expansion and hard money. The daguerreotype was made in the years before his death in 1858, and its record credits Mathew Brady's studio, which dominated fashionable portrait photography at the time. Gold toning, applied after development, strengthened the image and gave the silver surface a warm, softened tint. The plate's scratched numbers and inscriptions record its later handling by collectors and institutions.

Created / published[between 1844 and 1858]
Medium1 photograph : half plate daguerreotype, gold toned.
GenrePortrait photographs 1840-1860.Daguerreotypes 1840-1860.
NotesScratched on face of plate: 85. Scratched on back of plate: 228; Thos. H. Benton. Facing the light / H. Pfister. Washington : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978, p. 299. Transfer; U.S. War College; 1920; (DLC/PP-1920:46153). Forms part of: Daguerreotype collection (Library of Congress). Produced by Mathew Brady's studio.
SubjectsBenton, Thomas Hart,--1782-1858.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,213 × 1,536 px · prints to 4 × 5 in at 300 dpi
Reference44_Thomas_Hart_Benton_head_1844

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