Category Archives: Medium

mediums

The Largest Photography Gallery in the U.S.

The Chicago Siegel-Cooper Company was established in 1887 and nine years later owner Henry Siegel opened an enormous department store in New York at 18th Street and 6th Avenue. It was, at that time, the largest store in the world. On opening day, a near riot occurred as 150,000 shoppers tried to squeeze into the store built to house only 35,000. Note the elevated railroad stop exclusive to the store.Twenty-three electric elevators carried shoppers to four floors (five and six were confined to staff), along with a basement restaurant and botanical garden on the roof. The first floor book department included a stationary unit with a small press for engraved wedding invitations and visiting cards. From 1905 to 1915, the concession was managed by Cassius Coleman and his son, painter Glenn O. Coleman (1881-1932). See number 29 on the floor plan:Along 18th street between 7th and 8th avenue was their enormous stable housing 200 horses for home delivery of purchases and a hospital for sick horses run by a team of veterinarians.

Besides the botanical garden, the roof featured an immense photography gallery, “the largest and most complete in the United States. It is fitted up with all the latest improvements appertaining to the photographic art, and an able staff of assistants under the control of a master of the art of artistic portraiture. Here the visitor can obtain the finest and most artistic portraits, varying in size from the smallest miniature to life size.”
According to the store’s literature, the gallery completed “4,000 photographs on a bright day and 20,000 in a week, [in] the most modern and up-to-date gallery in America. Enlarging is done in crayons, water colors, pastel, and oils. The visitor can obtain a crayon portrait for $1 to $25, or he can pay $250 to $300 for the finest kind of reproduction in pastel or oils.”

The space included a great reception room where sitters congregated along with various cozy dressing and retiring rooms for changing clothes and preparing to be photographed.

Read more: A Bird’s-Eye View of Greater New York and Its Most Magnificent Store: being a concise and comprehensive visitor’s guide to Greater New York, its myriad sights and scenes, and its grandest emporium of commerce, the big store of Siegel-Copper Co. (New York: Siegel, Cooper & Co., 1898).

Base-ball

Base-Ball
The Ball once struck off,
Away flies the Boy
To the next destin’d Post,
And then Home with Joy.

Moral
Thus Seamen, for Lucre
Fly over the Main,
But, with Pleasure transported
Return back again.


Now online is a digital copy of Sinclair Hamilton’s: A little pretty pocket-book: intended for the instruction of amusement of little Master Tommy, and pretty Miss Polly. With two letters from Jack the Giant-Killer: as also a ball and pincushion: the use of which will infallibly make Tommy a good boy, and Polly a good girl: To which is added, A little song-book, being a new attempt to teach children the use of the English alphabet, by way of diversion . . . First Worcester edition (Printed at Worcester, Massachusetts: By Isaiah Thomas, and sold wholsesale and retail at his bookstore, MDCCLXXXVII [1787]). 11 cm, 64 woodcuts. Digital: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/jm214s73x. Graphic Arts Collection Hamilton 115s; also in Cotsen Eng 18 8136

Compare Princeton’s copy to the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbc0001.2003juv05880/?sp=51

This is a reprint of Newbery’s edition originally published in London in 1744; first published in the United States by Hugh Gaine in 1762 as A Little Pretty Book. According to Hamilton, the mention of baseball on p. 43 might be the first. It predates other possible baseball “firsts.”

“The earliest known mention of baseball in the United States was in a 1792 Pittsfield, Massachusetts by law banning the playing of the game within 80 yards of the town meeting house. Another early reference reports that “base ball” was regularly played on Saturdays on the outskirts of New York City (in what is now Greenwich Village) in 1823. …The booming port city of New York had more than 120,000 residents in 1823, according to the census, and its warren of cobblestone lanes had pushed as far north as present-day Canal Street. The Retreat mentioned in the article was a two-acre rural estate that in 1822 became the site of a tavern run by a man named William Jones.– https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/the-pittsfield-baseball-bylaw-of-1791-what-it-means-940a3ccf08db

It also pre-dates the mention of the first game at The Retreat in New York City. “… articles appeared April 25, 1823; they indicate that some form of the game was even then being called ”base ball” and was played in Manhattan. … The game was played on the west side of Broadway between what is today Eighth Street and Washington Place in Greenwich Village, long before anyone dreamed of putting on a pinstripe uniform.– https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/08/nyregion/baseball-s-disputed-origin-is-traced-back-back-back.html

 

New York Daily Times December 19, 1854: 3.

More on the Gotham Club: http://protoball.org/Gothams_Club_of_New_York

Frank Hegger

Frank Hegger (ca. 1840-1903) was described by his daughter Grace (Mrs. Sinclair Lewis) as a “failed artist turned photographer.” On October 27, 1886, he became one of the first image distributor arrested by Anthony Comstock, Secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, for selling obscene photographs.

Hegger was accused of selling “unmounted photographs” that were imported through the mails from Paris, described as “of the most obscene and filthy character. …one package contained 134 pictures, most of them from life, and I am satisfied from my investigation that there is a large amount of nude and obscene pictures imported by various dealers in the City of New York, …designed for artists [but]…distributed promiscuously.”–Amy Werbel, Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock (Columbia University Press, 2018).

Recognized for his superb carbon prints, Hegger did a fair amount of business with Adolphe Braun through his Paris offices. One package seized in the raid was addressed from that firm, possibly reproductions of works from the Louvre, where Braun held the sole license to photograph and circulate reproductions. These may have been the objectionable nudes. According to Werbel, “Comstock’s campaign to rid America of vice in fact led to greater acceptance of the materials he deemed objectionable.”

By 1890, all Hegger advertisements describe landscapes and architectural views, no portraiture, although men continued to line-up on the sidewalk to get into his shops at 152 Broadway and 288 Fifth Avenue, where prints as large as 4 x 3 feet were displayed and sold.

“Frank Hegger’s Photographic Depot, at 152 Broadway, is the best-known and most popular establishment of its kind in America. This spacious store is a magazine packed with everything that is choice in water-colors, etchings, engravings, photographs of every possible description, and unmounted views from all parts of the globe. “If you can’t get them at Hegger’s, you can’t get them in this country, ” is a well-deserved compliment and literally true.

Hegger’s is always abreast with the time, and the selections which continually replenish his stock are made with the taste and judgment of a man of travel and a knowledge of the best one sees as a traveler.  . . .The absence of the Hegger establishment from New York would leave an aching void to the eyes of thousands to whom his show-windows and portfolios are a perpetual source of intellectual refreshment and aesthetical delight.

The Broadway sidewalk is often blockaded by the throng attracted by his ever freshly renewed and ever novel and interesting displays, and brokers and business men, hot with the fever of mid-day business, break suddenly away from their drive for gain to “run in and see what Hegger has new,” and jostle grave[?] divines and college professors in their investigations of the huge sample books.”

—King’s Handbook of New York City: An Outline History and Description of the American Metropolis (1892).152 Broadway, adjoining the N. E. corner of Liberty Street, showing Frank Hegger’s Photographic Depot, the best known and most popular establishment of its kind in its day. –New York Public Library “Old New York” 1883?

See also: Half a loaf by Grace Hegger Lewis (New York: H. Liveright, 1931). Fictionalized autobiographical account of the author’s marriage to Sinclair Lewis. ReCAP 3827.15.342

Love in a Village

Charles Grignion (1721-1810) after Francis Wheatley (1747-1801), Love in a Village,1791. Etching and engraving. Proof before lettering. Graphic Arts Collection, recently discovered.

John Bell (1745-1831) commissioned a number of designs for his series Bell’s British Theatre to be engraved as frontispieces. The final print for Love in a Village has the title of the play, quotation and reference: ‘Will you accept of them for youself them / Act 1. Scene [obscured]; above the roundel, partly obscured ‘British Theatre’; below the image ‘Wheatly delin. / Grignion scu. / London Printed for I. Bell British Library Strand Jany. 6th. 1791.’.

“Concurrently with work for Boydell, [Francis] Wheatley was also engaged by John Bell, the publisher, to execute a number of vignettes for the charming little series of “Bell’s Theatre,” and five of these vignettes are by him . . . and the dates extend from 1791-1792. . . . sold for £20, and two small portraits of actresses for 33 guineas.”—William Roberts, F. Wheatley, R.A. His Life and Works (1910)

Love in a Village was a comic opera in three acts composed and arranged by Thomas Arne (1710-1778) with a libretto by Isaac Bickerstaffe (1733-1812), based on Charles Johnson’s 1729 play The Village Opera. It premiered at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden in London on December 8, 1762. The opera was revived numerous times, both during Arne’s lifetime and after, with multiple published versions and visualizations.

“In 1792 Bell’s English Theatre, an amalgam of parts of the Shakespeare and the British Theatre, was published in 14 volumes. After his first bankrupcy in 1793 much of his stock was acquired by James Barker who published the “acting” Shakespeare and sixty plays from the British Theatre in the following year. In 1795-96 Bell was involved in a law suit with George Cawthorn who was eventually awarded all future profits of the British Theatre and was allowed to use “The British Library” on his title pages; c. 1804, Cawthorn was succeeded by John Cawthorn (qq.v.). Bell was bankrupt again in 1797, but his fortunes revived and by his death at the age of 86 he owned a house in Fulham, carriages and horses, as well as a collection of works of art.”

 

Johann Zoffany (1733–1810), A Scene from “Love in a Village” by Isaac Bickerstaffe. Act 1, Scene 2, with Edward Shuter as Justice Woodcock, John Beard as Hawthorn, and John Dunstall as Hodge, 1767. Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art

 

American Revolutionaries by Esnauts et Rapilly

What do these men have in common, besides the same hat?

They are part of a series of portraits of American revolutionary officers, published in Paris during the 1770s by partners Jacques Esnault (1739-1812, also written Esnauts) and Michel Rapilly (1740-1797?), whose shop was located at no. 259 rue Saint Jacques. Each portrait uses the same cartouche with a shield, cannon, and banner, some laterally reversed. Most of the prints held in the Graphic Arts Collection are before the complete caption, signature, or number at the top.

 

The portraits in the Graphic Arts Collection (both catalogued and recently found) include:

Israel Putnam (1718-1790), an American army general officer, popularly known as Old Put, who fought with distinction at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolutionary War.

Charles Lee (1732-1782), a general of the Continental Army during the American War of Independence. He also served earlier in the British Army during the Seven Years War.

Horatio Lloyd Gates (1727-1806), a retired British soldier who served as an American general during the Revolutionary War.

George Washington (1732-1799), an American general and the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797.

John Hancock (1737-1793) an American merchant and president of the Second Continental Congress.

John Sullivan (1740-1795), an Irish-American General in the Revolutionary War, a delegate in the Continental Congress, Governor of New Hampshire and a United States federal judge.

George Brydges Rodney (1718-1792), 1st Baron Rodney, KB, a British naval officer. He is best known for his commands in the American War of Independence

Robert Rogers (1731-1795), an American colonial frontiersman. Rogers served in the British army during both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution.

Esek Hopkins (1718-1802), the only Commander in Chief of the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War.

Benedict Arnold (1741-1801), an American military officer who served as a general during the American Revolutionary War, fighting for the American Continental Army before defecting to the British in 1780.

Several prints are complete with the signature of the printmaker “Dupin,” although it is not certain whether this refers to Jean Victor Dupin (born 1718) or Nicolas Dupin (died after 1789) also referred to as Dupin II.

It would not be Pierre Dupin “the Elder” (ca.1690-ca.1751), father of Jean-Victor, as several online sources list. Nicolas is the better attribution but cannot be confirmed.

 

This is the only print in our collection with text engraved in the cartouche.

Who Drew These and Why?

The Graphic Arts Collection has a series of portraits all done in the same unidentified hand. Was this a class assignment to copy 19th-century black and white sources, and then add color? Or were these actually connected to the source?

Each portrait has an ink transcription on the back taken from the Illustrated London News obituary for these men: Justice Field; Sir Thomas Henry; M. Thiers, Fitzroy Kelley, Sergeant Parry, Alexander J.E. Cockburn, G.H. Lewes-Litera, and F.P.G. Guizot. Neither the portrait nor the text are exact copies.

When you go back to the original portrait and put the two faces side-by-side, the amateur style of the watercolor becomes apparent but the numbering on many and elaborate caption seem to indicate a serious project.

Source Citation: “Death of the Lord Chief Justice.” Illustrated London News [London, England] 27 Nov. 1880: 522+. Illustrated London News. Web. 25 June 2019. URL:http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=prin77918&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100108866&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0

Several of the wood engraved originals (but not all) are signed by Biscombe Gardner, a regular contributor to the Illustrated London News, portraiture a specialty.

William Biscombe Gardner (1847–1919) was a British painter and wood-engraver. Working in both watercolour and oils, he exhibited widely in London in the late 19th century at venues such as the Royal Academy and the Grosvenor Gallery.[1] From 1896 he lived at Thirlestane Court. He illustrated a number of books featuring the British landscape (see below), notably Kent, Canterbury, and The Peak Country. He also drew scenes from the Welsh Elan Valley in the 1890s, before it was flooded to form the Elan Valley Reservoirs, which appeared in two books by Grant Allen (see “illustrated Books” below). However, it was as a fine wood-engraver that he was mainly known, providing illustrations (sometimes large) for British magazines of the day such as The Pall Mall Gazette, The Illustrated London News, The English Illustrated Magazine and The Magazine of Art. He was a firm advocate of traditional wood-engraving considering it to be the most versatile in comparison to the more conventional methods of engraving and etching, or more recent methods including “process illustration”–DNB

Source Citation: “This Eminent French Statesman and Historian Died on Saturday Night, at His Rural Mansion of Val Richer, Ner Lisieux, in Normandy.” Illustrated London News [London, England] 19 Sept. 1874: 277+. Illustrated London News. Web. 25 June 2019. URL: http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=prin77918&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100093116&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0

In the end, it is most likely a copy assignment or personal exercise. Why the watercolors stayed together and came to Princeton is still a mystery.

Campaigning 1814

The Graphic Arts Collection holds two copies of a rare broadside prepared for the 1814 gubernatorial campaign of Samuel Dexter (1761-1816): The Ship Union — 98, will meet the Enemy on the First Monday in April, with an American Crew, …not one fainting lubber among them. Peace, obtained by the thunder of our Cannon … not by base submission! ([Boston: Yankee-office, 1814]).

The two stanzas of verse beneath the woodcut were written to encourage people to vote against Governor Strong and for Dexter.

Arise! Ye Sons of Washington, your boarded bark to save,
Don’t give up your gallant Ship, to float on faction’s wave;
The Union, ninety-eight, will soon pour upon the foe
Quincy’s famous cannon balls, and lay the Rebels low;
Brave Dexter will command her and like the noble Perry,
In April next, will rout the foe, and then we’ll all be merry.

Then rally round the Polls, and drive out Caleb Strong,
Let Dexter once but rule us—our Union will be long;
No longer will our gallant ship avoid to meet the foe,
Our Union will range quickly up, and give the deadly blow,
Hoist up the Union Flag, my boys, upon the lofty mast.
And down the Rebel Rag will come, and all their hopes we blast.


When the United States Congress voted to join the War of 1812 on June 18, there were still many who opposed it, in particular Caleb Strong (1745-1819), Governor of Massachusetts. Eight days later, the Massachusetts House of Representatives condemned the war and voted against it 406 to 240. When the war continued into 1814, Strong’s position gained in popularity and instead of retiring, the 69-year-old Federalist ran for a second term.

“…Such was the political atmosphere in Massachusetts, for instance, that the Republicans put forth moderate Federalist Samuel Dexter as their gubernatorial candidate in 1814. Dexter was careful to say that although he shared mainstream Federalists’ sense of grievance, he differed with them as to “their indiscriminate opposition to the war, especially their convention project.” The 1814 election therefore represented a referendum on the proposed Hartford convention above and beyond the war itself, and Caleb Strong beat Dexter handily, drawing 55 percent of the vote.”–Matthew Mason, “Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic” (Univ of North Carolina Press, 2009).

At the time of the election, Dexter was practicing law in Boston, having served in the Senate, as Secretary of War, and Secretary of the Treasury. His 1814 campaign centered on his support for the war–“Vigorous war till we have an honorable peace”–and accusations that Strong was a coward. This broadside promises his administration would have “not one fainting lubber among them.” The strategy was not successful.

 

Woman’s Independent Government Currency

This $10 bond in the Graphic Arts Collection comes with a Masonic label on the back. It is uncertain what the connection is although there was an interesting new church established in Chicago in 1868.


On August 26, 1868 The New York Times published an article entitled “The Kingdom of Woman. Another Astonishing Development of Spiritualism,” introducing the “headquarters of an extraordinary association of men and women, who deem their great mission to be the formation of a new empire, to be governed by females…”  —https://www.nytimes.com/1868/08/26/archives/the-kingdom-of-woman-another-astonishing-development-of.html

Over the next few years, papers in Indianapolis and other cities around the country echoed the announced:

“Euphemia Regina, Masonic queen of wisdom’s sacred temple, proposes to establish a memorial church at Warehouse Point,” which “is intended to enable woman to make a free pulpit and rostrum for her to dispense the law and ordinances of religion and politics, forming a divine marriage of church and state, and inaugurating ’The New Wisdom Age,’ for the world’s redemption. “Euphemia Regina” is “Sophronia Billings Abbe, grand scribe and corresponding secretary.” — Indianapolis News, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 September 1872

It seems doubtful the church announced in 1868 relates to the “United States Church” above. This article http://www.iapsop.com/ssoc/1868__scott___spiritualism_not_divine.pdf
“Spiritualism Not Divine: or a System of Demonry [sic], Imposture, and Infidelity Examined in The Light of Philosophy, History, Morality, and the Bible” by James S.H. Scott (1868), takes it even further. Here is a small section:

“The pecuniary obligation incurred by the Masonic Queen of Heaven in the business transaction with which we were favored, had been liquidated, so to speak, as our readers will remember, by the tender of certain cabalistic bills on the Wisdom Bank, each entitling the bearer to Forty dollars worth of good in the City of Light and Love. A facsimile of this supernatural medium of exchange also appeared in our columns in connection with the aforesaid description.

These bills, it should be remembered, were, strictly speaking, neither current nor negotiable; they were, according to their tenor, based upon real estate, and were to be retained by the holder as a charm against all evil, sufficiently long to enable the influence which attended them to pervade his being, and then an agent of Euphemia Abia would, if desired, redeem them in the ordinary currency of the realm. The chief of the Republican job office, owing to grossness and skeptical obtuseness of his spiritual organism, failed to be come susceptible to the developing inducements of these pecuniary charms, and, probably as are buke to his infidelity, Euphemia Abia also failed to perform her part of the contract, and her agent so long delayed his advent that the most sanguine began to doubt the reality of this supernatural existence.

We have now, however, to announce the fact that the Masonic Queen of Heaven has caused to be fulfilled, in part, the vaticinations of Lady Sophronia Kilbourne, an agent having actually redeemed a third portion of these heavenly promises to pay, to the more than intense delight and astonishment of those to whom they were made payable. It becomes, therefore, a pleasant duty to chronicle the birth of a new organ of intelligence, The Wisdom Age, the printing of which, by the Republican job establishment was attended by the afore-and-above mentioned unusual business incidents, and the issuing of which to the world was delayed by these little idiosyncratic maneuvers of Euphemia Abia, Masonic Queen of Heaven, under whose auspices The Wisdom Age has been inaugurated.

 

A Zebra with the Head of King George III

“Some of the first exotic animals to enter France and England in the early 1700s,” writes Geri Walton, “were the chimpanzee and the rhino. They would later be upstaged by the zebra, with one of the striped beasts arriving in England in 1762. It was a wedding gift from Sir Thomas Adams and given to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who had married George III a few months earlier in 1761.”

The zebra became a shorthand for royal greed and stupidity, appearing in multiple satirical prints of the time.

Thanks to the generous donation of Bruce Willsie, ‘86, the Graphic Arts Collection now holds on deposit this 1768 broadside The Times, which was a sequel to the broadside The Times, or 1768. It does not appear to have any connection to William Hogarth’s The Times, from September 7, 1762, although the comparison would make an interesting article.

Here is a copy of plate one from the British Museum.

The Times, or 1768. British Museum 1868,0808.4412.

They note “Lettered with the title, captions, twenty-four lines of verse in four columns giving the explanation to a numerical key ‘Behold corruption openly profest … Sweet Liberty return, and lasting Peace.’ and ‘To the Memory of William Allen Barbarously Murderd in St. Georges Fields/ Publish’d June 8, 1768 as the act directs, price 6d’.”

Our new broadside features William Allen rising from the dead in the center of the print, while Lord Bute rides a zebra with the head of George III on the right.  The verses below are written in the form of a rebus, substituting controversial words for pictures. Dorothy George writes for the British Museum:

“A broadside satirising Lord Bute, blaming him for the murder of William Allen; with an etching showing a landscape with two columns inscribed with the names of politicians, between the columns at the top centre a medallion of Oliver Cromwell, the left side of the image shows good influences, including a seated figure of Britannia and the Earl Temple accompanied by the British Lion, above them Fama blowing a trumpet and holding a laurel wreath, on the right side, dedicated to the bad influences, Lord Bute riding a zebra which has the head of King George III, near the zebra various animals, in the centre of the image the ghost of Allen rising from a grave; with engraved title, inscriptions, speech-bubbles, and verses in form of a rebus. (n.p.: [1768])”

William Allen was an innocent spectator killed by soldiers of the Scots Guard during the riots in St George’s Fields on 10 May 1768. The anonymous artist of the two quickly produced etchings are taking Lord Temple’s side, blaming Lord Bute, and his close connection with King George III, for the murder.

 

Can you make out the sentences?



 

 

 

How light is scattered by the metallic nanoparticles on the surface of a daguerreotype determines the characteristics of its image, such as shade and color.

https://news.unm.edu/news/trailblazing-findings-of-daguerrerotype-properties-revealed-by-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art-and-unm

Andrea E. Schlather, Paul Gieri, Mike Robinson, Silvia A. Centeno, and Alejandro Manjavacas, “Nineteenth-century nanotechnology: The plasmonic properties of daguerreotypes” in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Online first published June 10, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1904331116. Edited by Catherine J. Murphy, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, IL, and approved May 2, 2019.

As seen on various websites, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) and The University of New Mexico have announced groundbreaking new findings after a two-year study of the plasmonic properties of daguerreotypes. Using atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, together with numerical calculations, the team of scientists from The Met and UNM, in collaboration with Century Darkroom, Toronto was able to determine how the light scattered by the metallic nanoparticles on the surface of a daguerreotype determines the characteristics of its image, such as shade and color.

Daguerreotypes, among the earliest photographs of the 19th century, owe their incredible optical properties, image resolution, and dynamic range to light scattering produced by metallic nanostructures on their surface. Here we provide a detailed experimental and theoretical analysis on how the material composition, morphology, and dimensions of these nanostructures determine the characteristics of the daguerreotype image. Our results provide a scientific understanding of the unique optical effects of these artworks and therefore, in addition to providing valuable insight for developing preservation protocols, can inspire additional approaches for color printing, where nanostructures are directly manufactured by light.

Abstract: Plasmons, the collective oscillations of mobile electrons in metallic nanostructures, interact strongly with light and produce vivid colors, thus offering a new route to develop color printing technologies with improved durability and material simplicity compared with conventional pigments. Over the last decades, researchers in plasmonics have been devoted to manipulating the characteristics of metallic nanostructures to achieve unique and controlled optical effects. However, before plasmonic nanostructures became a science, they were an art. The invention of the daguerreotype was publicly announced in 1839 and is recognized as the earliest photographic technology that successfully captured an image from a camera, with resolution and clarity that remain impressive even by today’s standards. Here, using a unique combination of daguerreotype artistry and expertise, experimental nanoscale surface analysis, and electromagnetic simulations, we perform a comprehensive analysis of the plasmonic properties of these early photographs, which can be recognized as an example of plasmonic color printing. Despite the large variability in size, morphology, and material composition of the nanostructures on the surface of a daguerreotype, we are able to identify and characterize the general mechanisms that give rise to the optical response of daguerreotypes. Therefore, our results provide valuable knowledge to develop preservation protocols and color printing technologies inspired by past ones.

See also Mudd Library’s 2000 online exhibition of their historic Princeton daguerreotypes: http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/mudd/online_ex/dags/intro.shtml