Sixth Plate

SPEAKING OF UNFOCUSED! The daguerreian responsible for the couple’s newly taped sixth plate certainly was more of an artist who definitely had a better repertoire with his paint set (maybe it was done by numbers) then focusing his camera. “What happened”, Erin and I asked each other after I purchased the marvelously hand-colored likeness? Every facet of their faces and bodies were soft. Was this, the man’s style? I’d wager he would have been forced to make improvements soonest. Although admittedly the pair waltzed out of the studio with this image housed in a lovely and intact brightly painted Japanned Black case inlaid with slices of mother of pearl. The bold red binding was stamped in golden filigree and had “MEMORIAL” also embossed on the spine. After I removed the dag from the case I was amazed to see a peculiar yellow waxy resin on the copper side. This characteristic shows up on dags produced in Mathew Brady’s gallery and sometimes on examples from Beckers and Piard, circa 1848-1852. I really can’t fathom how any of those operators could have been responsible of this unusual object. The wide spread specks and flecks are not bothersome. There are several deep buff marks visible in the negative.