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Frederick Douglass
Portrait of Frederick Douglass. Photograph, c. 1850 (after c. 1847 daguerreotype) Medium: Sixth-plate daguerreotype.
Quirow Demo ArchiveEarly PhotographyDaguerreotype portraits and daguerreian studios
Faces of the Daguerreian Age
Portraits on silver, 1843–1858
1843–1858
For about twenty years after 1839, a portrait photograph was a single, irreplaceable object: a polished silver plate, kept under glass in a hinged case. There was no negative and no second print. These daguerreotypes, now at the National Portrait Gallery, show writers, soldiers, performers, and families who sat very still in front of a lens for one of them.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
Portrait of Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe. Photograph, 1852. Medium: Sixth-plate daguerreotype.
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Lola Montez
Portrait of Lola Montez. Photograph by Meade Brothers Studio, c. 1858. Medium: Sixth-plate daguerreotype.
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Julia Catherine Seymour Conkling
Portrait of Julia Catherine Seymour Conkling. Photograph, 1848. Medium: Sixth-plate daguerreotype with applied color.
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Kate Frances Meade and Henry Almon Meade
Portrait of Kate Frances Meade and Henry Almon Meade. Photograph by Meade Brothers Studio, c. 1854. Medium: Sixth-plate daguerreotype.
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Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson
Portrait of Thomas Jonathan Jackson. Photograph by H. B. Hull, 1855. Medium: Sixth-plate daguerreotype.
Daguerreotype portraits and daguerreian studios. Archived by Quirow Demo Archive.
Exhibit created with Quirow.