Snapshots of the Past

Unidentified man, half-length daguerreotype portrait – Vintage Photo Print

Unidentified man, half-length daguerreotype portrait, 1844 — historic photograph
Unidentified man, half-length daguerreotype portrait, 1844. 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 Unidentified man, half-length daguerreotype portrait in remarkable detail. It is part of the Snapshots of the Past archive, gathered over 25 years of research.

Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

Unidentified man, half-length daguerreotype portrait

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The sitter here is unidentified, so the picture rests on its physical form rather than a known name or story. Made in 1844, it is a daguerreotype, a process announced in France only a few years earlier that fixed an image directly onto a silvered copper plate. Half-length portraits like this one, cropping the body at the waist, were a common format of the period because exposures were long and the framing kept the sitter's face sharp. Daguerreotypes are unique objects with no negative, and their mirror-like surfaces shift between positive and negative depending on the angle of light, so the viewer's own position becomes part of the picture.

Created / published1844
Original scan3,209 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi
Reference414_Unidentified_man_halfle_1844

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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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