Category Archives: CDVs

CDVs, Collecting, Daguerreotypes, Photography

New additions to the collection

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I found my first Alexander Gardner CDV! I’m very excited. It’s a really cool image of a large group of what could be a family, four couples, or just eight random friends. None are identified. I’ve been hunting for a Gardner CDV for a while now, as they don’t seem to be all that common, unlike the Brady CDVs which show up frequently.

Group, by Alexander Gardner
Group, by Alexander Gardner
I was intrigued by the group dynamic – is this a family? Some of the men appear related, but one doesn’t fit. The couples, if in fact they are four married couples, are not arranged in any particular pairings. Could they just be a group of (extremely well-dressed) friends who dropped by the studio? And what’s with the odd composition showing the group bunched to the side, and the head clamp sitting in the corner by its lonesome? Very odd. It makes the image rather self-reflexive, calling attention to the fact that it is a photograph, not a painting, by reminding us of the process of taking a wet-plate image. Is it perhaps a sign of virtuosity, suggesting that the head clamp was not required? Or was it just sloppy workmanship and by the time they realized they forgot to put the head clamp out of the way, it was too late, and the sitters said, “well, that’s ok we’ll take it anyway”?

Another recent acquisition is a quarter-plate daguerreotype I found in an antiques mall outside Charlottesville, Virginia. This was a fortunate find – not only is the image larger in size than you normally see, but the image quality and preservation is overall quite good (the original seals are intact), and the case, though worn, is complete and still maintains the original hinge and clasps. The image is probably from a Charlottesville area estate, but no identifying information was provided with it. I did remove the packet from the case and discovered the names of the subjects scratched into the paper lining – I’ll have to grind a pencil lead on some sandpaper to make some carbon dust and try to get the characters filled in so I can read the inscription and identify the sitters. I’ll post a photo of it when I have figured out what it says.

Anonymous, Daguerreotype, Couple, Charlottesville, VA
Anonymous, Daguerreotype, Couple, Charlottesville, VA

Apologies for the color of the image – this was my first time scanning a daguerreotype, and the image itself came out more blue-green than it is in reality. I was concerned about over-correcting and turning the mats some garish shade of yellow that they’re not, so I left it alone this time. This was another intriguing composition – almost all the dags I’ve seen and bought before have some kind of background and/or props for the sitters. This looks like the couple is against a black backdrop, almost as if they’re floating in space. And the large dead space at the top of the frame is interesting too, from a compositional standpoint.

CDVs, Collecting, Photography

Busy Week in Collecting, Part 2 – various CDVs, including celebrity photos

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Here for your viewing pleasure are three random CDVs. The first one I don’t have a lot to say about because the sitter is unknown. The photographer is William Shew, who began his photographic career on the East Coast, then moved out to San Francisco in 1851 to capitalize on the gold rush. He began his career as a Daguerreotypist, and his first studios in San Francisco were a mobile wagon parked in the plaza at Kearny between Clay and Washington streets – now Chinatown (which I hope to photograph the location as it appears today while I’m out in San Francisco on vacation). He was one of only three photographers in San Francisco at the time.

Anonymous CDV by Willam Shew, San Francisco
Anonymous CDV by Willam Shew, San Francisco

The next pair of images come from the mid-19th century cult of celebrity. Although both cards are not marked as to their photographer, there is a good probability that they were taken by the Brady studio, which was known for such subjects, and both had been photographed on other occasions by Brady. The first is Henry Ward Beecher, the prominent preacher and abolitionist and brother to Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and according to Abraham Lincoln, “this little lady whose book started this great big war”.

CDV of Henry Ward Beecher, photographer unknown (probably Brady)
CDV of Henry Ward Beecher, photographer unknown (probably Brady)

This one may NOT be Brady’s, because the set is so plain – even the hat stand/support prop is rather simple for Brady’s studio, and oftentimes public figures of Beecher’s status would be invited to sit for their pictures whenever they visited a new town. These cards were the sports trading cards/Tiger Beat posters of their day, and people would collect them in albums to show off when friends came to visit.

The last image is another of Commodore Nutt and a woman who is unidentified, but another little person. It MAY be Minnie Warren, sister of Lavinia Warren, ex-sweetheart of Commodore Nutt who went on to marry General Tom Thumb in the Fairy Wedding (see previous post), but she appears smaller of stature than Minnie. It is also NOT the Commodore’s wife, who while below average height, was not a dwarf. Again, an anonymous image, but very much in the same vein. It may be possible to identify the photographer from the backdrop of the image. The custom backdrops like this were often like fingerprints or signatures for individual photographers’ work – the painted backdrops were often custom-made and very expensive, so they show up over and over again.

Commodore Nutt and unknown little woman, Anonymous CDV (probably Brady)
Commodore Nutt and unknown little woman, Anonymous CDV (probably Brady)

Note the feet of the posing clamp stand showing from behind the girl/woman. I love finding images that show the stand – it’s a bit of a reminder how the image was made. These would all have been shot in daylight studios on wet plate collodion negatives, which meant that the subjects still had multi-second exposures to hold still for.

CDVs, Chambersburg, Collecting, DC Portraits, Portraits

I’m BAAAACK! To posting that is…

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It’s been a while since I added anything here, because I’ve been insanely busy dealing with a whole bunch of personal business (breaking up, evicting my ex, cleaning up the aftermath, starting dating again, reconfiguring my office, building a new home wireless network since the ex took the wireless router, getting nasty bronchitis, recovering from said bronchitis, etc etc you know…). I haven’t had a lot of time for collecting or thinking about it as a result. Well, the dust has settled and I’ve been casually acquiring an odd and end here and there, so I’m back to writing about it again.

One of the things that has interested me, and helped drive me into this whole civil war period image collecting thing, is my hometown – Chambersburg, PA. Chambersburg was perhaps the most trampled ground north of the Mason Dixon line during the Civil War. Prior to the war, John Brown planned his raid on Harpers’ Ferry while living there, and met with Frederick Douglass to discuss the plans (Douglass advised against attacking the federal arsenal). Jeb Stuart’s cavalry raided it for the first time in 1862. Then Lee’s troops passed through on their way to Gettysburg in ’63, and in 1864 General McCausland’s troops demanded a ransom of $500,000 in US currency or $100,000 in gold, which the town refused to pay, so it was put to the torch.

In digging around on Ebay, I found an image of a man who was born a few towns over from Chambersburg. That got me thinking about the old hometown, and I started searching for Chambersburg related stuff. I acquired a group of photos spanning a good 20+ years of work from a single studio, which in further searching on Ebay seems to have been the most prominent if not the only studio in town at the time.
Here is the image that got me thinking about Chambersburg, a photo of David Eiker, born in Quincy, Pennsylvania. Quincy is a tiny one-stoplight town a few miles east of Chambersburg. This photo was taken at the J. Goldin studio in Washington DC.

Acquired at the same time was a more-or-less unrelated photo of a Mr. R.K. Hopkinson, taken at the Henry Ulke & Bro. studio in Washington DC. The common thread was the Washington, DC studio. Mr. R.K. Hopkinson Served in Company D of the 3rd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery during the civil war.

CDVs, Collecting, Photography, Portraits

Random images

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Two new additions to the collection – an anonymous CDV of what appears to be at least brothers if not twins, one standing the other seated playing the violin. Best guess is late 1860s / early 1870s. The other is another Brady image of Tom Thumb, his wife, and Commodore Nutt, this time with an average man for comparison. It’s funny how these things turn up in groups – I first get the Fairy Wedding CDV, then another different image of the same people shows up shortly after, so I had to buy it!

Ambrotypes, Antique Processes, Cased Images, CDVs, Collecting, Photography, Tintypes

The Last Full Measure: Tintypes/Ambrotypes from the Civil War. Liljenquist Collection at the Library of Congress

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For those who haven’t been following this, a few years ago the Liljenquist family (father and three sons) began collecting civil war cased tintypes and ambrotypes. They amassed a collection of over 700 images, of which approximately 10% have been identified. They range in size from 1/9th plate to 1/2 plate, and in subject matter from Union and Confederate soldiers to children, wives, mothers and family members in mourning, officers and enlisted and both slaves and freedmen. The collection is currently on display at the Thomas Jefferson building of the Library of Congress. Although small, the display encompasses some 300 images: some two hundred and fifty Union soldiers and their families and some fifty Confederates. One of the most striking images in the collection is the former slave and his family, a wife and two daughters, posed with him in Union uniform. It makes an interesting parallel that 150 years ago, this man was fighting for his freedom, and today, a very similar man with a very similar family sits in the White House, President of a nation radically remade by the sacrifices of that African-American soldier. Other highlights include the little girl dressed in mourning attire, holding a photo of her father who quite possibly she never knew, and the picture of the confederate soldier accompanied by a letter back home to his family describing how he died on the field of battle. A mourning necklace is also on display: the pendant is an oval gutta-percha case containing the photograph while the chain supporting it is woven of human hair, most likely from the woman who made it and whose husband is depicted inside the case.

The collection is astonishing in its scope and specificity, as well as for the collecting acumen displayed by the Liljenquist family. The family still collects at a furious pace, and so the Library has asked them to make their donations quarterly, instead of weekly as they had been doing, to give the curators time to catalog and preserve their donations. The collection in its entirety will be available online through the Library of Congress’ website in the near future.

Link to the collection: The Last Full Measure: The Liljenquist Collection at the Library of Congress

They also have the collection on display on the LoC Flickr feed entitled “Civil War Faces“. They welcome input from the general public as part of the effort to identify the subjects of the photographs.

CDVs, Collecting, Daguerreotypes, DC Portraits, Photography, Washington DC

Three new Victorian photo parlors to add…

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I’ve found two more Washington DC parlors and one New York Daguerrian studio:

J. Golden – 819 Pennsylvania Avenue
Henry Ulke & Bro. – 278 Pennsylvania Avenue

The New York Daguerrian parlor is:

A.J. Beals – 156 Broadway

The address for Henry Ulke’s studio would put him today squarely on the grounds of the US Capitol, not far from the Spring Grotto, if the address is correct. Either they had a different street numbering scheme, the address is in Southeast DC instead of Northwest DC (which would put him at an even more unlikely location, a tiny triangle park just beside the Library of Congress building), or the Capitol grounds were greatly enlarged sometime between the 1870s and 1900. Given how so far so many of these studios’ locations can be accurately pinpointed today, even though the streetscape has changed a lot, I’m liking the probability that the address is correct, and that the streetscape has changed, rather than the location being inaccurate.

CDVs, Collecting, Photography

Tom Thumb’s Fairy Wedding by Brady

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Ok, I’ve been waiting for a while to get this one. I originally saw a listing with a copy of this image on Ebay for somewhat north of $300. I debated and debated whether to get it or not. After much consideration, I passed on it, thinking that the signatures on the back were most likely facsimiles, and not original signatures. Patience paid off – another copy (the one I bought) showed up. While not quite as nice a condition, it actually looks much better in person than it does in the scans. My copy had the added benefit of being less than a quarter of the current asking price of the other copy I passed on.

For those not familiar with the subject matter, Charles Stratton, AKA General Tom Thumb, was a star of the P.T. Barnum sideshow and performer from the 1840s to the late 1870s. He was born a relatively large, healthy baby but stopped growing significantly before his second birthday. At his tallest he was 3 feet 4 inches. In 1863, he married another dwarf, Lavinia Warren. His best man was George W.M. Nutt, a fellow dwarf and performer in Barnum’s circus, and Lavinia’s bridesmaid was her younger sister, Minnie, also a dwarf. The event was dubbed “The Fairy Wedding” and was the social event of the year. Two thousand guests packed Grace Episcopal Church in Manhattan. After the wedding, Charles and Lavinia went to Washington where they were received by President Lincoln. Charles, Lavinia, George and Minnie posed for Matthew Brady who went on to sell CDVs of the photo as souvenirs of the wedding through his publisher, E. & H.T. Anthony. This is one of the E. & H.T. Anthony productions.

CDVs, Collecting, Photography

Manuel Murillo Toro, President of Colombia- Mathew Brady Studio, New York

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Another recent acquisition. Manuel Murillo Toro, the President of Colombia from 1864-1866 and again from 1872-1874. Taken in the Mathew Brady New York studio. Probably the best-preserved Brady image I have. This image is most probably from the 1872-4 term, as he is labeled President of the United States of Colombia on the back. In his prior term as president, Colombia was known simply as Colombia.

Manuel Murillo Toro, Presidente of Colombia

CDVs, Collecting, DC Portraits, Photography, Stereoviews

In the spirit of past images

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After digging up the stereoview of the Lehigh Valley Railroad station, I did a quick peek on Ebay to see if I could find any others. Whaddya know, my first search turns up another in the series. It’s in pretty rough condition, but I bought it anyway because it was going cheap. This is one case of a stereoview set that I’ll actually try to complete – there’s only 24 in the set. I have a casual interest in railroad memorabilia, as my grandfather was a conductor on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited between Altoona an Chicago in the first half of the 20th century. I’m also a roller-coaster fan, so finding a photograph of the first roller-coaster is pretty cool (first roller-coaster you say? see the blurb below).

Incline, Lehigh Valley Railroad

This is a picture of the switch-back gravity railroad, which was originally built to aid in bringing coal from the top of the mountain to the railroad. It quickly grew into a tourist attraction, and then became the first roller-coaster in the United States, when it became dedicated to passenger service. The car would be towed to the top of the mountain on one track, then switch and fall down the other track propelled by gravity alone. There was a driver/brakeman in the car to prevent it from flying off at the bottom out of control.

The town is Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, now known as Jim Thorpe, PA, named to honor the Native American athlete. Ironically enough, Jim Thorpe was from Oklahoma, and his sole connection to Mauch Chunk is that he attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and that Mauch Chunk was a Native American name approximately meaning “Bear Mountain”, because the mountain in whose shadow the town was built looks like the back of a bear. After he died in 1953, his surviving wife sold his remains to the town, which hoped that his grave would be a tourist attraction.

This next image is another recent acquisition – another Washington DC carte-de-visite. This one, if the inscription on the back is accurate, is a self-portrait by the photographer, or at least the inscription is by the photographer – “Your Friend – From Mr. Arthur(sp?) Woodley”. I’m curious if the Woodly on the card is a typographical mistake, as the signature really does look like it says “Woodley”. I’m also curious if the Woodley/Woodly is any relation to the Woodleys for whom Woodley Park was named. Given how small a town DC was in the 1860s, I’d say the odds are in favor.

K.C. Woodly CDV, Washington DC

The address on this one is a mystery – 181 Pennsylvania Avenue would put the studio on the Capitol lawn. Furthermore, he indicates that the studio is located between 17th and 18th Streets, which would make 1781 Pennsylvania Avenue a more likely actual address. I wonder if the printer was short on E’s and 7s when he ran these off.

Ambrotypes, Cased Images, CDVs, Collecting, Daguerreotypes, Photography, Tintypes

Some comments on collecting

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As I’ve been collecting images, and I do a fair bit of my looking on Ebay, I’ve noticed a couple of interesting albeit off-putting trends. I go back and forth between interest in tintypes, daguerreotypes, and CDVs, with the occasional odd foray into early 20th century images if they include things like cars. In looking for daguerreotype images, I’ve been seeing a lot of what are really very ordinary, common images (no identification of subject or photographer, 1/6 plate to 1/9th plate size, ordinary condition) being listed for astronomical prices ($650 for a 1/6 plate dag? Really?). It’s one of those things that gives you a false impression of the market – seeing all those listings at those stupid prices makes you think that A: your own collection is worth a lot more, and B: if people are listing them for that kind of money, they must be selling for that kind of money. This impression lingers unless you do a search on closed auctions, where you’ll see that most of the successful sales are still in the under $200 range, with the odd exception of some truly rare or exceptional images (1/2 plate, known subject, unusual subject, etc).

Another marketing trend I find a bit odd is the whole “gay interest” tag in the image description. On one level, I get it – the seller is trying to reach out to an under-appreciated market. On the other hand, I question if the people using that tag line understand the “gay interest” thing at all. Two men or two women posing together in the Victorian world did not make them a same-sex couple. They could be siblings, co-workers or just friends. 99% of the time we have zero context to go with any image to make an assessment of the relationships captured in the images. There was no public subculture in the 1850s or even in the 1880s that we would today recognize as analogous to the late 20th/early 21st century gay culture, and as such it would not have been recorded photographically. There is certainly an interest in finding proof of ancestry – “see, we DID exist in the 1850s”. Unfortunately, buying in to the “gay interest” marketing of these images is really just being taken for a ride through ignorance and vulnerability. Don’t get me wrong – it’s certainly fun to speculate what might have been going on behind the scenes of these pictures, and what the relationships of the sitters might be to one another. I have one image in my collection that in the right minds implies no end of off-camera highjinks. But it’s still pure speculation. If you see an image marked “gay interest”, buy it only because you actually like the image, not for any marketing baloney designed to separate more of your hard-earned money from you than is fair.