The Daguerreotypist
Medium
Classification
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Accession Number
S/NPG.77.242
Tags
ColumnPhotographCameraTripodTableStudioDaguerreotypistPrintmakerMarcus Aurelius Root: MaleDog
About this artwork
Writing for the popular magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book in the spring of 1849, novelist and short-story writer Timothy S. Arthur described the enormous popularity of daguerreian portraiture in America. “In our great cities,” he observed, “a Daguerreotypist is to be found in almost every square; and there is scarcely a county in any state that has not one or more of these industrious individuals busy at work.”