Sixth Plate

HIS JEWELED FRAME! Luther Holman Hale could compete with the great Boston daguerreians. His gallery was located at 109 Washington St. beginning in 1845 through 1862. I can’t remember looking past more horribly corroded sixth plate sized glass and wondering how badly the surface might have been affected. When I was removing the original paper seal I noticed that the plate was smaller then normal and oddly cut. Could this be possible I thought? Sure enough, upon lifting off the brass mat stamped “Hale” in the lower left corner, I saw that this teenager had been copied from a round image that would have been secured in a locket. And I realized that my dag had been enlarged from the original. I am wondering how Hale accomplished that? Joyfully, the intense young fellow’s close up portrait, executed with such style at the outset, still presented the subject in this lifelike fashion and it was unmarred save for the brilliant rim of patina. When the full leather push button case from the mid-1850s is opened, not even the savviest collector of fine daguerreotypes would consider that the portrait was a second-generation piece. This likeness is still an exceptional accomplishment!