Anonymous American Photographer

sixth-plate daguerreotype, cased, circa 1840

Acquired from Ken Appollo, Rhinecliff, 1976, Joseph Buberger as agent

Stanley B. Burns, Mirror Mirror: The Burns Collection Daguerreotypes (New York: The Burns Archive Press, 2012), pl. 57

This fascinating early daguerreotype appears slightly more luminous when examined in person than as reproduced in the catalogue illustration. There is uneven tarnish along the edges of the thin mat. Upon close inspection are scattered tiny black spots and a 1/4-inch scratch extending from the lower edge. There is a pen-point-sized fibrous adhesion near the lower edge. The leather case is scuffed and there are a few small losses of leather. The case opens from the top edge and the spine is brittle.
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This early daguerreotype of a finely dressed woman with brooch clearly shows the long exposure time necessary at the advent of photography.  In order to remain still, sitters were often restrained by clamps, posing stands, or headrests, to which the present sitter’s stiff appearance can be reasonably attributed. 

The maker of this early image is unknown.  Visual cues within the image, including the photographer’s use of a hanging backdrop, are laden with suggestion.  A comparison with known plates by pioneering American artists Robert Cornelius and Samuel F. B. Morse, who had met Daguerre in Paris in 1839, are apt but may not warrant anything more than hopeful attribution.