Untitled (Portrait of a Man Smoking a Pipe)
1853
Medium
Daguerreotype
Dimensions
8 × 7 cm (3 3/16 × 2 13/16 in.); Open case: 9.1 × 15.8 × 1.1 cm (3 5/8 × 6 1/4 × 7/16 in.); Case: 9.1 × 7.9 × 1.7 cm (3 5/8 × 3 1/8 × 11/16 in.); Plate: 8.3 × 7 cm (3 1/4 × 2 3/4 in.)
Classification
portrait
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
249916
Art Historical Context
This striking daguerreotype captures a man casually smoking a pipe in 1853, offering a glimpse into mid-nineteenth-century life through one of photography’s earliest and most captivating formats. Created just fourteen years after Louis Daguerre introduced his revolutionary process, the image exemplifies how quickly the medium transformed portraiture from an elite luxury into something more accessible to the middle class. Daguerreotypes are unique, one-of-a-kind images formed on silver-plated copper sheets. Their remarkable sharpness and luminous detail made them prized keepsakes, often housed...