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Daguerreotypes
Daguerreotype and ambrotype portraits, the earliest commercially made photographic likenesses. Source archive and rights statement on every image.
3 portraits · free to download
Announced in France in 1839, the daguerreotype is a unique image on a silvered copper plate with no negative, so no two are alike. The mirrored surface has to be tilted against a dark background to read as a positive, and plates were sealed under glass in hinged cases to protect them. It dominated American portraiture through the 1840s and early 1850s before cheaper ambrotypes and tintypes took the trade.
This collection is still small — 3 portraits so far, below the 12 needed for a full hub. It grows as the archive does. Browse the fuller collections.
![[Unidentified young boy with cased photograph], 1860 (Library of Congress)](/api/img/unidentified-young-boy-with-cased-photograph-1860-MkivcqVFEiSc3RqMaSvu.jpg)
![[Portrait of Mamie D. Lee], 1860 (Library of Congress)](/api/img/portrait-of-mamie-d-lee-1860-xnscqC3gUntWynCVBIKc.jpg)
![[First Lieutenant James N. Bell of Co. H, 5th Virginia Cavalry Regiment and Co. C, 13th Virginia Cavalry Regiment in uniform with his wife and daughter, Emmeline and Nannie Claudia Bell], 1861 (Library of Congress)](/api/img/first-lieutenant-james-n-bell-of-co-h-5th-virginia-cavalry-regiment-and-co-c-13t-KlZplH0iRMJr4W9iED98.jpg)