**Originally Listed At $100**

North America, United States, ca. 19th century CE. A striking pair of antique daguerreotype photographs. The first photograph shows a three-quarter portrait of a woman wearing a dark dress with a white undergarment and a white lace collar, her hair held back in a parted bun which reveals her long and ornate earrings. The photograph is set behind a leaf-and-dot embossed brass backing, covered with a protective glass panel, and held together by a folded leafy embossed frame. The second photograph portrays a full-portrait seated man and woman: the man wearing a dark jacket and holding a cane with his gaze affixed off-center, and the woman wears a dark dress and a white tied bonnet with an expressionless face and hands folded in her lap. The photograph is set behind an unadorned brass frame with a glass panel and embossed brass perimeter, all inside a leather-wrapped wooden frame. A lovely collection! Size (single woman): 2.75" W x 3.25" H (7 cm x 8.3 cm); size (seated couple): 3.25" W x 3.75" H (8.3 cm x 9.5 cm).

Daguerreotype was the first publicly available photographic process, created by rubbing a sheet of silver-plated copper with fumes to make its surface light sensitive and then exposing it. The image was made visible by fuming it with mercury vapor, and then it was treated with liquid chemicals and dried before being enclosed behind glass to protect.

Provenance: private Ventura County, California, USA collection

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#124973

Single woman photograph has extensive wear to perimeter of photograph and minor wear to portrait area, minor age marks to interior brass panel, scratches to glass panel, and tarnishing to exterior brass frame; does not have an exterior frame/case. Seated couple photo has fading and age marks to photograph, scuffs and scratches to glass panel, tarnishing and dents to brass perimeter frame, and wear to exterior wood and leather case; does not have accompanying second case section.