D1 - JOHN ADAMS WHIPPLE (BOSTON, MA)

Portrait of Stephen Tilton Family. Mammoth plate daguerreotype (11_ x 13_.) Circa 1846. Core-molded rosewood frame, gold-toned fillet, and matting. This unusually large mammoth plate daguerreotype was made in 1846 by John Adams Whipple of Boston. It is the family portrait of Stephen Tilton, a prosperous Boston merchant, his wife Priscilla, and their 12 children. The image is displayed in its original rosewood frame, gold fillet matting, and glass. Not only is it one of a very few daguerreotypes of its size, it is also an extraordinary example of the daguerreotypist_s art: there is unusual clarity in every detail, dignity in the pose of every family member, and well modulated light on each face. Whipple made the image in his studio, where he used mirrors and scrims to direct and diffuse the light from a single skylight. The information known about the sitters is as follows: Stephen Tilton (1790 - 1857) age 56; Priscilla Hale Brown Tilton (1791 - 1861) age 54. The twelve children ranged in age from Elizabeth age 33 to Maria, age 11. The ages of the children in the portrait were 33, 32, 31, 29, 27, 26, 24, 22, 20, 18, 16, and 11.