MATHEW BRADY. Portrait of Senator Arthur P. Hayne, c. 1850s. 7.9x5.5" salted paper print on 9x6.5" paper, mounted on 10.6x7.8" board. Printed c. 1850s. Inscribed in pencil on mount recto: Judge Hayne. Inscribed in pencil on mount verso: Judge Hayne US C [?] / Probably / Arthur Peronneau Hayne / Charleston 1790-1867 / US Sen. 1558-1559 / a brother of Robert Y. Hayne / who died in 1939; inscribed in pencil: Meserve's handwriting.

Provenance: Ex-F.H. Meserve Collection; George Rinhart.

Probably a copy print of an early daguerreotype with extensive and well done period retouching. Arthur Peronneau Hayne was born in 1788 or 1790 and died in 1867. He was a U.S. Senator from North Carolina from May to December 1858, and was later made a judge.

Though known first as a portraitist, Mathew Brady became the most famous American photographer of the 1800s because of his studio's many Civil War images. Like other enterprising photographers in the mid-1850s, he opened a studio on Broadway in New York City. Through flattery and determination, he lured notable subjects such as Daniel Webster and Henry Clay to his studio, which he promoted as a Hall of Fame. After the election of 1848, Brady traveled to Washington to photograph political figures. Over time, he built a monumental archive that included presidents, senators, congressmen, Supreme Court justices, actors, writers, businessmen, clergy, scientists, artists, military men, and entrepreneurs.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Brady obtained permission for his staff of photographers to follow in the tracks of the Union Army in the field. They worked under the direction of Alexander Gardner, who had managed Brady's Washington studio. Ruined by a series of financial setbacks, he spent his last years trying to sell his photographic archive to the American government, believing that it would assist future artists in representing their subjects with greater authenticity, enabling more compelling illusions, and making possible truly American pictures.

https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1968/mathew-b-brady-american-about-1823-1896/

Very good. Moderate wear, lower right corner of print missing. Mount shows edge and surface wear.