[Middle-aged Man with Glasses Holding Pocket Watch]
![[Middle-aged Man with Glasses Holding Pocket Watch] by Antoine-François-Jean Claudet](https://images.artheonmuseum.org/met/ph/thumb/middle-aged-man-with-glasses-holding-pocket-watch-291820.webp)
Medium
Daguerreotype with applied color
Dimensions
Image: 11.3 x 8.7 cm (4 7/16 x 3 7/16 in.) Plate: 14.6 x 12.2 cm (5 3/4 x 4 13/16 in.) Case: 2.2 x 17.8 x 15.2 cm (7/8 x 7 x 6 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Herbert Mitchell, 2008
Accession Number
2015.400.67
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the dawn of photography with *Middle-aged Man with Glasses Holding Pocket Watch*, a captivating daguerreotype by Antoine-François-Jean Claudet, created between 1844 and 1859. Claudet, a pioneering French-born photographer based in London, was instrumental in refining the daguerreotype process—photography's first practical method, invented by Louis Daguerre in 1839. This medium produced unique, mirror-like images on silvered copper plates, capturing unprecedented detail and realism that thrilled Victorian audiences. The portrait depicts a bespectacled middle-aged man intently examini...