Matthew Brady
(American, c. 1823-1896)
Portrait of James Duncan,c. 1848
Half-plate daguerreotype
Palmer Museum of Art, 97.2

History Past, History Present: The Daguerreotype Portrait in America
January 16-May 20, 2001

With History Past, History Present: The Daguerreotype Portrait in America,the Palmer Museum of Art offers an ambitious exhibition that examines the beginnings of portrait photography in the mid-nineteenth century. The themes and issues addressed in the exhibition emerge from research on the first daguerreotype to enter the museum's collection.

The daguerreotype, the earliest photographic process, was announced in January 1839. It is a medium relying on a silver-coated copper plate that is sensitized and exposed in the camera and developed over mercury vapor. The resulting image is formed at the molecular level and, consequently, is characterized by subtle detail, clarity of definition, and a gradation of tones that is unlike anything we see in photography today.

The Palmer Museum acquired the large daguerreotype portrait of a man named James Duncan in February 1997. Duncan graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1834. Two years later, he served in the Florida war against the Seminole Indians and commanded an artillery company during the war with Mexico from 1846 to 1848. His heroics in the latter conflict caught the attention of army officials, and Duncan rose rapidly from captain to colonel. In late 1848, President James Polk appointed Colonel Duncan inspector general of the United States Army. The daguerreotype in the Palmer collection was made when Duncan came to New York City in December 1848, shortly before beginning his first inspection trip. A few months later, while visiting troops in Mobile, Alabama, he contracted yellow fever and died on July 3, 1849. Duncan's notoriety as a war hero was so great that even three years after his death the most fashionable portrait studio in New York City was still exhibiting his portrait as one of the select "Illustrious Americans."

What first attracted the Palmer Museum's attention to this portrait, however, was not the notoriety of the sitter, but the fact that "Brady NY" was etched into the delicate surface of the silver-plated image. Mathew Brady was one of America's foremost photographers during the nineteenth century. Although best known as the photographer of the Civil War, fifteen years earlier Brady was internationally renowned as a daguerreotype portraitist. In New York City, Brady's daguerreian establishment appealed to the most fashionable of New York's high society. While any large Brady portrait is a great rarity, there are only six daguerreotypes that have been signed on the plate by his studio.

Given the complexities of this image—its uniqueness as one of the few remaining signed daguerreotypes by Mathew Brady and its status as a portrait of a celebrated American war hero—this exhibition will engage viewers on several levels. They will learn about the differences between daguerreotypes and modern photographs and will have an opportunity to see a daguerreian studio along with some of the finest examples of artistic portraiture. In addition, History Past, History Present will include prints and photographs that provide a historical understanding of Duncan's importance in antebellum America. The exhibition will also feature the most outstanding signed daguerreotypes from a range of public and private collections—from the J. Paul Getty Museum in California to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. In addition to this formal presentation, History Past, History Presentwill include a study area in which questions raised by the exhibition will be brought into our present space and time. For example, the visitor will be invited to consider the changing nature of fame and its relationship to image making; how visual culture is shaped by the historical moment and, conversely, how it structures social interaction; and why certain objects are elevated to the status of cultural artifact while others are ignored.

History Past, History Present: The Daguerreotype Portrait in Americais the subject a major online project by Partners in Public Service, a collaborative effort of the Penn State University Libraries, the Palmer Museum of Art, Penn State Public Broadcasting, and the Pennsylvania Center for the Book.

G. Wilson
(American, active 1850s)
Self-portrait with a Daguerreotype Camera,1853
Six-plate daguerreotpe
Collection of Matthew Isenberg
(Photo Courtesy of Matthew Isenberg)

Albert Sands Southworth
(American, 1811-1894)
and
Josiah Johnson Hawes
(American, 1808-1901)
Portrait of a Seated Woman Holding a Book,c. 1850
Quarter-plated daguerreotype
Collection of Matthew Isenberg
(Photo Courtesy of Matthew Isenberg)

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