Sixth Plate

WAS HIS NICKNAME . . . Patches? I wonder why his mother ever let her son pose for his retaped sixth plate portrait while wearing trousers with that large patch over his knee. Certainly it was an indication of how active the lad was in life. And probably how dirt poor the family fortunes might have been. How could they have afforded the price of the daguerreotype? I might be able to answer my question by mentioning that the camera operator was most likely an itinerant. Just to the left of the lad’s head there was a long dangling thread along the seam of the cloth backdrop. Although the child’s face was soft, I don’t think he moved during the exposure. The daguerreian was more accustom to making images of adults and that unsharp area would have been on the torsos of most grown up patrons. The quality of the plate preparation was mediocre at best and all the horizontal areas of black streaks were part of the sub-par buffing. I would be remiss not to mention his filthy jacket that appeared to be several sizes too large. Those brown spots have teeny green dots in the center of each one. The silver is oddly tarnished. You all know how I love these primitive plates even when they were taken soon after 1850! Only the bottom of the leather case remains.