Portrait of an elderly man with white hair, daguerreotype – Vintage Wall Art
(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: Portrait of an elderly man with white hair, daguerreotype, preserved in this historic photograph. Drawn from the Snapshots of the Past archive, it is an authentic piece of documented history.
The framed print arrives ready to hang; the unframed option suits custom framing. Perfect for a home, office, library or classroom wall, and a gift with a story behind it. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past has been bringing history to the wall since 2001, for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Portrait of an elderly man with white hair, daguerreotype
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The sitter here is an unnamed elderly man with a full head of white hair, and that detail, along with the plain studio setting typical of the period, is what distinguishes this plate from the many other portraits on the board. Made in 1844, it is a daguerreotype, a process announced in France in 1839 that produced a single, mirror-like image on a polished silver-coated copper plate. Exposures of that era often ran for several minutes, so sitters were asked to hold still, and their stillness is part of what gives such portraits their solemn quality. Because the sitter's name is not recorded, the image is valued less for who he was than for what it shows of early photographic portraiture.
| Created / published | 1844 |
|---|---|
| Original scan | 3,258 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | 407_Unidentified_man_about_1844 |
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