Daguerreotype portrait of an unidentified man in dark coat – Vintage Photo Print
(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: Daguerreotype portrait of an unidentified man in dark coat, preserved in this historic photograph. It comes from the Snapshots of the Past collection, curated over 25 years for its historical value.
Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. Perfect for a home, office, library or classroom wall, and a gift with a story behind it. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past has been bringing history to the wall since 2001, for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Daguerreotype portrait of an unidentified man in dark coat
Order a print
Thank you. Your order went through, and a receipt is on its way by email.
Secure checkout · SSL encryptedPowered by Stripe and PayPal
Free shipping in the lower 48 states. The checkout page shows the picture, size and price before you pay.
Few daguerreotypes from 1844 survive with the sitter's name attached, and this one is no exception: a man in a dark coat, unidentified, looks out from a plate that was made only five years after Louis Daguerre's process was publicly announced in 1839. The image is a single, mirror-like silver surface, so its tones shift with the angle of light and the viewer's position. Portraits of this kind were expensive and often sat for only a few seconds to a minute, which made them a luxury for the middle class of the day. Worth noticing is how the dark clothing reads as deep black against the pale face, a contrast the early process rendered with striking clarity.
| Created / published | 1844 |
|---|---|
| Original scan | 3,296 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | 381_Unidentified_man_about_1844 |
More from the Daguerreotypes & Early Photography collection
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.
