PITCH BLACK!

He sat so still in that wonderful painted child’s chair, yet the tiny tot’s expression seemed to indicate that he would rather have been any where else then in front of a daguerreotype camera. I wonder if he instinctively touched his straw hat to reassure himself that there was something familiar close by. Certainly a parent was near the camera. Although mom or dad would have resembled a shadowy apparition since the light source was aimed directly upon the young lad. The hailstorm of white dots was not ice crystals, rather daguerreian frosting created when the operator pushed his process to make the darkest areas vivid black! The marks in the midnight cloth were made during the buffing phase of the plate preparation. The boy’s brilliantly constructed image was done in sixth size that fits snugly into a fine leather case with a horizontal theme of a basket filled with flowers on both covers. The archivally sealed likeness has explosive depth. He was taken circa 1845-1846.