Daguerreotype portrait of a seated man in an oval mat – Antique 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 a seated man in an oval mat, preserved in this historic photograph. It is part of the Snapshots of the Past archive, gathered over 25 years of research.
Order it framed and ready to hang, or unframed to match a frame you already love. It brings character to any room and makes a memorable gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Since 2001, Snapshots of the Past has shipped historic prints to tens of thousands of customers around the world.
Daguerreotype portrait of a seated man in an oval mat
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 details survive about the sitter of this 1840 daguerreotype, but its form tells much of the story. Daguerreotypes were one-of-a-kind images made on silver-coated copper plates, and this example's oval mat is a telltale feature of the era, when a bevelled or oval opening framed the sitter and focused attention on the face. Portraits from 1840 were a novelty: exposures could take several minutes in bright light, so subjects had to hold still, often with head braces hidden out of frame. Because each plate is a unique mirror-like image, the picture must be viewed at an angle to see it clearly, and its surface is easily scratched, which is part of why surviving examples from this early year are so prized by researchers.
| Created / published | 1840 |
|---|---|
| Original scan | 3,264 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | 550_William_Pinkney_Rodgers_1840 |
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.
