Portrait of a Housekeeper
Medium
ambrotype with applied color
Dimensions
image (visible): 4.7 × 3.5 cm (1 7/8 × 1 3/8 in.) mat: 6.3 × 5 cm (2 1/2 × 1 15/16 in.) framed: 9.6 × 8.9 × 1.5 cm (3 3/4 × 3 1/2 × 9/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
The Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection
Accession Number
2023.146.39
Art Historical Context
Step into the intimate world of 19th American photography with *Portrait of a Housekeeper*, a gem from the 1860s created by an anonymous American photographer. This tiny ambtype—measuring just 4.7 × 3.5 cm—captures the dignified gaze of a working woman, her role in domestic life preserved in glass. Housed in the National Gallery of Art's Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection, it exemplifies the era's shift toward accessible portraiture during the Civil War years. Ambrotypes, produced via the wet collodion process, were a breakthrough in the 1850s and 1860s: direct positives on glass that mimicked paint...
About the Artist
American 19th Century
The artist cataloged as "American, 19th Century" represents a collective of unidentified painters active in the United States during the nineteenth century, with 380 known artworks preserved in this virtual museum's collection. These works span a diverse array of genres typical of the era, including portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and genre scenes, reflecting the burgeoning artistic output of ...