Daguerreotype Rare 1/2 Half Plate Family Civil War era Antique HistoricalPhoto

Daguerreotype - RARE 1/2 plate 
Pre Civil War Family Sibling Photo
Circa 1855

Highly Scarce Large style 1/2 Plate Daguerreotype 

Comes with Rare Half Plate Case

1/2 PLATE DAGUERREOTYPE OF SEVEN YOUNG ADULTS, SIBLINGS? SHARP IMAGE, SOME SCRATCHES. This horizontal half plate daguerreotype is of seven young adults; they are possibly siblings. The image is sharp. It does have some horizontal light scratching (see listing picture). The image has been professionally resealed. It is in glass, mat, and preserver, and comes with a Very Rare HALF Plate Case. See more details below.

Note:  When you look at the high contrast images and see the remarkable resemblance between the subjects its hard to image they are Not Siblings.  Some of the men even look like twins!

NOTE:  Is it Highly Rare to come across a High Quality Dag like this in this exceedingly Rare Large 1/2 Plate size.    Collectors pay a premium for these Very Rare Half Plates.  

Comes in RARE Original Period HALF Plate Case:

Beautiful and very rare, 1850’s Double Half Plate Figural "Gutta Percha” / Thermoplastic Daguerreotype / Photograph Hard Case titled "Wedding Procession". This beautiful Union Case measures approx. 4 7/8” by 6 1/8” (outer measurements) and the interior opening accommodates two 1/2 Plate size Images. The Case contains a stunningly beautiful, matched pair of ½ Plate Ambrotype portraits of a young Gentleman and a young woman likely a husband and wife. The two Images are mounted in matching matts and binding and appear to be original to the Case.

The molded design on the front of the Case features a central image of a bride riding on an ox that is being led by a squire. Her groom walks beside the ox dressed in a military uniform and military men on horseback form the remainder of the procession. The central image is surrounded by a border of elaborate flourishes. The Case is a dark, rich and warm black color and very attractive. The Case is designated as Berg No. 1-10 and titled "Wedding Procession”.

The back side of the Case features a geometric design with a raised,central oval device and a “picture frame” style border. This design is designated as Berg No. 3-4 and titled simply "Geometric”.
This rare and very beautiful, 1850's 1/2 Plate size Union Case is in very good condition. The molded images on both sides are crisp and without significant wear to even the highest points of the design. There are small chips at some of the corners and around the edges as well as a corner crack at the upper right hand corner of the side rail junction on the front of the case and at the upper left hand corner of the side rail junction on the back of the case. The hinges are just a bit loose and, while the Case closes squarely it does not latch. This may sound like a lot of flaws but all are quite minor.

* See enlargeable images above and below

The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process.

Dag photography was considered an Art form.  As a matter of fact, Dag studios were considered Art Galleries and Photographers were referred to as Artists, as evident where Dags had the studio labels they would be imprinted with a signature for example, "J. J. OUTLEY, ARTIST, ST. LOUIS"  

Dag photography was considered an Art form.  As a matter of fact, Dag studios were considered Art Galleries and Photographers were referred to as Artists, as evident where Dags had the studio labels they would be imprinted with a sigmature for example, "J. J. OUTLEY, ARTIST, ST. LOUIS"  

The History of Photography:  Where it all started, with a Brilliant Inventor.

The Daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839-1860) in the history of photography. Named after the inventor, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, each daguerreotype is a unique image on a silvered copper plate.   After the Dag introduced the world to the first photograph,  it would be followed by two other 19tn century photographic enhancements, namely the Ambrotype around 1860 and then the Tintype.   But, it all started with the Daguerreotype and this historical significance is what makes Dags some of the most valuable and collectible in the genre of Historical Photography. 

The daguerreotype process made it possible to capture the image seen inside a camera obscura and preserve it as an object. It was the first practical photographic process and ushered in a new age of pictorial possibility. The process was invented in 1837 by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851).

In contrast to photographic paper, a daguerreotype is not flexible and is rather heavy.The daguerreotype is accurate, detailed and sharp. It has a mirror-like surface and is very fragile. Since the metal plate is extremely vulnerable, most daguerreotypes are presented in a special housing. Different types of housings existed: an open model, a folding case, jewelry…

Numerous portrait studio’s opened their doors from 1840 onward. Daguerreotypes were very expensive, so only the wealthy could afford to have their portrait taken. Even though the portrait was the most popular subject, the daguerreotype was used to record many other images such as topographic and documentary subjects, antiquities, still lives, natural phenomena and remarkable events.
European daguerreotypes are scarce. They are scattered in institutional and private collections all over the world. Many aspects of the daguerreotype still need to be discovered. They can help us to understand the impact of photography on Europe’s social and cultural history.   

Daguerre (1787–1851) and the Invention of Photography:

On January 7, 1839, members of the French Académie des Sciences were shown products of an invention that would forever change the nature of visual representation: photography. The astonishingly precise pictures they saw were the work of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851), a Romantic painter and printmaker most famous until then as the proprietor of the Diorama, a popular Parisian spectacle featuring theatrical painting and lighting effects. Each daguerreotype (as Daguerre dubbed his invention) was a one-of-a-kind image on a highly polished, silver-plated sheet of copper.

Daguerre’s invention did not spring to life fully grown, although in 1839 it may have seemed that way. In fact, Daguerre had been searching since the mid-1820s for a means to capture the fleeting images he saw in his camera obscura, a draftsman’s aid consisting of a wood box with a lens at one end that threw an image onto a frosted sheet of glass at the other. In 1829, he had formed a partnership with Nicéphore Niépce, who had been working on the same problem—how to make a permanent image using light and chemistry—and who had achieved primitive but real results as early as 1826. By the time Niépce died in 1833, the partners had yet to come up with a practical, reliable process.

Read more about this most fascinating invention of photography Below:
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dagu/hd_dagu.htm

http://www.photographyhistoryfacts.com/photography-inventors/louis-daguerre/

Who was the first President to be photographed?

The one-of-a-kind dagurreotype of Adams is intrinsically significant to both American history and to the history of photography. In March 1843, Adams visited Haas' Washington, D.C., studio for a portrait sitting, becoming the first U.S. President to have his likeness captured through the new medium of photography.   This Adams dag sold at auction in October 2017 for $360,000. 

I guess if someone is driven to pay $12.6 Million for a Mickey Mantle rookie card last year, $360K doesn’t sound like much for a 180 year old major historical photo like the first president ever photographed.  

Note: Cvtreasures stamp Not on original