[Girl with Portrait of George Washington]

Albert Sands Southworth|Josiah Johnson Hawes|Southworth and Hawes

ca. 1850 · Daguerreotype · Photographs

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. 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.

Artist

Albert Sands Southworth|Josiah Johnson Hawes|Southworth and Hawes

Date

ca. 1850

Medium

Daguerreotype

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of I. N. Phelps Stokes, Edward S. Hawes, Alice Mary Hawes, and Marion Augusta Hawes, 1937