Two Children with Toys
c. 1855
Medium
daguerreotype, quarter-plate
Dimensions
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Classification
Photograph
Department
Photography
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
2002.32
Tags
About this artwork
Children have always been particularly cherished subjects for photography. Portraits were made to preserve the memory of their stages of growth and, in an age when long-distance travel was rare, to share with faraway relatives. And, for a sadder reason: in 1840 an estimated one-third of children died before age five. Photography offered grieving parents the opportunity to immortalize their children’s features. This tragic genre of photographs, later called “post-mortems,” often depicts the child...