Girl with portrait of George Washington, ca. 1850 ~ Daguerreotype by Southworth and Hawes (American, active 1843–1863)
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” The Boston partnership of Southworth and Hawes produced the finest portrait daguerreotypes in America for a clientele that included the leading political, intellectual, and artistic figures. This first photographic process, invented by Louis Daguerre (1798-1851), spread rapidly around the world after its public presentation in Paris in 1839. Exposed in a camera obscura and developed in mercury vapors, each highly polished silver plate is a unique photograph that, viewed in proper light, exhibits extraordinary detail and three-dimensionality.
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This mesmerizing portrait would also seem to be an allegory of allegiance, in which the young girl directs the viewer’s attention back to the iconic painting of George Washington. Recent scholarship suggests that this daguerreotype is actually a copy of another daguerreotype–adding further to the complex play of gazes–but as yet the subject and exact meaning of this enigmatic image are not known.
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The painting is Gilbert Stuart’s unfinished life portrait of George Washington (1796), which was acquired by the Boston Athenaeeum in 1831. Southworth & Hawes apparently copied the painting in 1853 (cat nos. 1906-11), either at the Athenaeum or in their studio, as they exhibited their daguerreotype copy between 1853 and 1857. “
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{ via: MET Museum }
