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Sometimes an image just steals your heart and that's how we feel about this winsome young child with sausage curls, home-made dress and shy expression. The child looks to be about 4 years old and we have bo idea if it is a boy or girl. The child is leaning on a book and the photographer surely told her to put her arm in a position where it could be held steady. The child seems worried about the whole, strange photography process. This is a 1/6 plate daguerreotype housed in a lovely papier mache case that has been inlaid with mother of pearl and silver wire. Each one of these cases is unique, depending on the vision of the maker. You can see how much work went into creating this design. The image is undated. We would guess that it was made in the late-1840s, but would welcome reader in-put here. It could easily have been taken in the early 50s.
Sometimes an image just steals your heart and that's how we feel about this winsome young child with sausage curls, home-made dress and shy expression. The child looks to be about 4 years old and we have bo idea if it is a boy or girl. At this age in the 1840s and 50s, bith boys and girls commonly wore dreses. We do think that the dress, hair style, and cost of a daguerreotype portrait all suggest that the child was from an affluent family.
We know this child is American, but we have no idea where in the United States the porteait was taken.
The child here wears a dress with a low-neckline and elbow-length sleeves. It seems similar to dresses we have seen in the 1840s and the 1850s. The dress looks very colorful and I suspect the material here was expensive. It was surely hand made, although mother may have been affluent enough to have it made in a dress shop.
The child here wears ringlet curls. They were worn by younger boys as well as gils. Are general assessment is that ringlets were more common for girls in the 1840s and became more common for boys later in the 1850s, but they were worn by some boys. The center part was more common for girls, but with ringlets it was also worn by boys. So we are just not sure about the gender of the child here.
The child is leaning on a book and the photographer surely told her to put her arm in a position where it could be held steady. The child seems worried about the whole, strange photography process. This is a 1/6 plate daguerreotype.
The only prop here is the book on the table. Books were sometimes used a a boy prop. Girls were less frequently photographed with books. I am not sure that is the case here.
The daguerreotype portrait is housed in a lovely papier mache case that has been inlaid with mother of pearl and silver wire. Each one of these cases is unique, depending on the vision of the maker. You can see how much work went into creating this design.
The image is undated. We would guess that it was made in the late-1840s, but would welcome reader in-put here. It could easily have been taken in the early 50s. The clothing provides few clues as to the the date nor does the hair style. The daguerreotype process doed help date the image. Dags were made in the 1840s and 1850s. Ambrotypes and tin-types appeared in the mid-1850s and because of cost, rapidly replaced dags. There were dags made in the late 50s and early 60s, but they were increasingky less common. Thus a dag like this was probably made in the late 40s or early 50s. We tend to think the late 40s, primarily because of the case, but we welcomed any insights readers might have.
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