Half Plate & Ninth Plate

?ENGLISH COUSINS?. I scanned that notation on a scrap of paper so you all could read what Casey and I saw when he initially purchased the women?s outstanding retaped half plate daguerreotype that comes with a lovely Pigskin leather pushbutton case that one usually associated with being most popular in the UK. However, who ?over there? could have possibly crafted such a brilliant representation of most likely mother and daughter? The very wealthy pair were so perfectly posed and expertly illuminated from brightness overhead against the darkness of a black backdrop that I simply thought this must have been made in a large American east coast city. My first thought, because of the stylistic nature of their portrait and that fine thin brass mat, was maybe Mathew Brady?s Broadway gallery. If they had traveled to the upper mid-west, Alexander Hesler in Chicago could have been the operator. The application of tinting was done with such a professional hand that both patrons looked positively lifelike! Much of the exquisite mirrored and highly reflective surface was covered with the teeniest brown specks that occurred shortly after the original was completed. There are also mold spiders, white dots and hazy blue patina in places. Obviously, I don?t have an answer to the mystery, where they were taken, but image number two provides further information. This is a ninth plate albumen photo also lavishly tinted and cut down to fit inside a ninth plate sized mat and English style leather case. The second inscription identifies the sitter, whom we believe was the young gal?s mother (in the dag) and taken later, as ?Cecelia Weaver Wells Aunt of Uncle Weaver?. When the daguerreotype is held at the best angle of view, all the faults become invisible and you will be holding a true masterwork!