[David and Ellen Bell, three-quarter length portrait, seated] – Antique Photo Print
![[David and Ellen Bell, three-quarter length portrait, seated], [between 1840 and 1850] — historic photograph](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/6e/6eb321cfef93-L.webp)
(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
[David and Ellen Bell, three-quarter length portrait, seated] comes to life in this historic photograph, reproduced from the original with every detail intact. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.
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[David and Ellen Bell, three-quarter length portrait, seated]
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Few daguerreotypes of this period show a couple posed together with such care, and this one is notable for its hand-applied color, which was often brushed onto cheeks, lips, and clothing to soften the otherwise silver-toned plate. David Charles Bell and Ellen Adine Hyland Bell sit in a three-quarter length composition, a format favored in the 1840s because it balanced the figures against the limited sensitivity of early plates. The photographer is unidentified, but the image belongs to the Library of Congress's Grosvenor collection of Bell family photographs, which links it to the wider family whose later work became well known.
| Created / published | [between 1840 and 1850] |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 photograph : quarter plate daguerreotype, hand-colored. |
| Genre | Portrait photographs 1840-1850.Group portraits 1840-1850.Daguerreotypes 1840-1850. |
| Notes | Photographer unidentified. Case: Rinhart 131. Transfer; Manuscript Division; 1975; (DLC/PP-1975:199). Forms part of: Gilbert H. Grosvenor collection of Photographs of the Alexander Graham Bell Family (Library of Congress). Forms part of: Daguerreotype collection (Library of Congress). |
| Subjects | Bell, David Charles,--1817-1901. Bell, Ellen Adine Hyland. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 3,265 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | 29_David_and_Ellen_Bell_th_1840 |
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