Snapshots of the Past

Daguerreotype half-length portrait of an unidentified man – Historic Photo Reproduction

Daguerreotype half-length portrait of an unidentified man, 1840 — historic photograph
Daguerreotype half-length portrait of an unidentified man, 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

Few images capture their era like this historic photograph of Daguerreotype half-length portrait of an unidentified man. It is part of the Snapshots of the Past archive, gathered over 25 years of research.

Framed, it is ready for the wall; unframed, it is ready for the frame you choose. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful 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 half-length portrait of an unidentified man

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A sitter whose name has been lost stares out from this 1840 daguerreotype, a half-length portrait that captures the earliest years of photography in vivid detail. The process was introduced in 1839 and produced a single, mirror-like image on a silver-coated copper plate, so every surviving example is effectively one of a kind. Portraits from this brief period were costly and required long exposures, which made them a privilege of the middle class and those eager to be recorded in the new medium. Because the sitter is unidentified, the picture rests on its composition, pose and the chemistry of the plate itself, offering a direct look at how people chose to present themselves at the dawn of photographic portraiture.

Created / published1840
Original scan3,262 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi
Reference433_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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