Snapshots of the Past

Daguerreotype portrait of an unidentified man, half length – Vintage Wall Art

Daguerreotype portrait of an unidentified man, half length, 1840 — historic photograph
Daguerreotype portrait of an unidentified man, half length, 1840. Historic photograph from the Daguerreotypes & Early Photography collection.

(Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

This rare historic photograph captures Daguerreotype portrait of an unidentified man, half length in remarkable detail. 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. A fine choice for anyone who loves history, and a gift that gets noticed. 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 an unidentified man, half length

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The sitter here is anonymous, so the picture rests on its materials and its moment. A daguerreotype is a one-of-a-kind image fixed on a silvered copper plate, and its surface shows a mirror-like sheen that shifts with the angle of light, so the man seems to emerge from the metal as you move past it. Portraits from 1840 were slow to make, requiring the sitter to hold still for minutes in bright sunlight, which gives such faces a guarded, composed quality. Early in the decade, photography was still new, and a half-length likeness like this one was a fresh and costly way for an ordinary person to own a lasting image of himself.

Created / published1840
Original scan3,282 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi
Reference417_Unidentified_man_halfle_1840

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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.

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