Two New England Civil War Era Daguerreotypes. 

This lot consists of two Civil War era daguerreotypes from New England. The first daguerreotype here is 3 7/8 x 3 1/2 inches wide and shows a gentleman on the left and a woman and child on the right, the child in the photo has been identified by the consignor as  Ida Pearl Reade Noyes, and it comes in a beautiful thermoplastic union case. The second daguerreotype is 3 3/4 x 3 1/4 inches wide and shows a family portrait with a child seated between mom and dad, the child is May Searle, it comes in  a wooden case, and both families came from the Boston area. 

The thermoplastic union case is in beautiful condition, with an image of a person perched in a tree, the person used a ladder to climb the tree and is holding a scythe and drinking stein, the person appears to be picking apples, a goat is passing behind the ladder on the left, and it is a sixth-plate thermoplastic case because the frames and images measure 2 3/4 by 3 1/4 inches. There is faint wear on the edge of the tree, the hinges and frames are in great condition, the clasp is intact, and we’ve left the clasp open so we don’t ruin it by forcing it to close. 

The wooden case has a hook clasp that is in very good condition and still works, a clean velvet fabric on the left, the image is slightly larger than a sixth plate and measures       2 13/16 by 3 5/16 inches, there is light wear on the corners of the case, and there have been no repairs to the cases.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
Daguerreotypes were first developed in the 1830’s by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre and went public in 1839. They were made from a process that left a detailed image on a polished sheet of copper plate with a thin coat of silver, without the use of a negative, they had a mirror-like reflective surface, and the image on the plate seemed to change when viewed from different angles. They were popular from the 1840’s to the 1860’s and went into decline when ambrotypes and tintypes became available. 

Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre (1787 - 1851) was a French scientist and photographer who invented the daguerreotype, and thermoplastic union cases were invented by Samuel Peck around 1850 and made from a pressed mixture of wood fibers (sawdust) and shellac, and they were a great improvement over the earlier hand-made wooden cases. They were more ornate, durable, and protective than the wooden cases, and the word “union“ comes from the union of shellac and wood fibers and does not refer to the northern states during the Civil War.     
 

All items are sold AS IS. Lot and condition details are for descriptive purposes only. Sarasota Estate Auction is not responsible for errors and/or omissions of condition. The absence of a condition report does not imply that the lot is perfect or free from wear, flaws, or characteristics of age. Please bid according to your own expertise, or request any additional information and/or photographs you deem necessary.