Sixth Plate

AN ITINERANT?S EXCELLENCE! The lumpy folded cloth behind the the sad and slightly disheveled subject who sat on the side of a small wooden chair suggests that the daguerreotypist used the background in many locations as he traveled the back roads of America in the mid-1840s. The woman’s expression and the slight blur of her heavily pigmented face accentuated her weariness. I wonder why she was so downtrodden and what might have been the circumstances that required the subject to hire the man to make this retaped sixth plate? The cover of the leather case is missing so I am apt to enjoy the woman more often since she is displayed in one of our glass cases. Her eyes were so dark that reflections of illumination and a white board on the right aren?t even visible. The gal?s mouth and lips were perfectly formed. Her maker painted that wedding band, ah now I know the reason for this likeness, and added red to her dress that I simply can?t show you all in this reproduction. There is a slight finger wipe above the sitter?s head and a pair of dark scratches in the drop. Curiously the table was placed behind the subject!