Today’s picture is of a little girl holding a doll, seated on a hammock. There is a rural background painting, turf in the foreground, and the foot of a posing stand visible beneath her. Her cheeks have been lightly rouged. I find it hard to date children’s fashions, but I am going to guess this image comes from right around 1890, based on the wide lace collar, the sleeves on the doll which appear puffed at the shoulder, and the use of the hammock, which I have not seen in earlier periods. Each of those points is arguable of course, and I may be off — tintypes do not offer as many dating clues as cardmounted photos. As with so many loose tintypes, there is no photographer or location identified.
Girl Seated on a Hammock Holding a Doll
The Castle at the Smithsonian Institution 1870s or 1880s
This is one panel from a stereoview, showing ‘The Castle’ from the 1870s or 1880s. Back then that one building constituted the entire Smithsonian Institution, whereas today it has 19 museums, a zoo, and nine research facilities. The stereoview was published by well-known and prolific Washington DC photographer John F Jarvis, and is marked ‘J F Jarvis, Publisher and Dealer, Stereoscopic Views’ on one side and ‘135 Penna Avenue, Washington DC’ on the other. Here is the description from the back of the card:
The Smithsonian Institution
Is a massive building erected in the south west quarter of the City of Washington, upon a Government reservation comprising about fifty-two acres. Its peculiar style of architecture is known as the Norman or Lombard. The corner-stone was laid May 1847 with Masonic ceremonies in the presence of James K. Polk and Cabinet. This building has been erected and perpetuated at an expense of about $450,000, all of which accumulated from the interest on the original bequest by James Smithson. The entire length of the building is 447 feet, and its greatest depth 160 feet. It has nine towers, the principal of which attains an altitude of about 150 feet. The scientific results of various exploring expeditions are stored here, constituting a Museum of Natural History containing curiosities, native and foreign. [See Wyeth's Federal City.]
It is hard to imagine in this era of visual data overload, the wonder and awe inspired by the introduction of photography to the masses in 1839. That was the year Daguerre introduced his wonderful daguerreotype. We have millions of surviving daguerreotypes on the planet, but they will never constitute a visual glut — they are too impressive, too moving, to be glossed-over with a glance. Today being the 224th anniversary of Daguerre’s birth, I’m displaying a few daguerreotypes here. These are not the crème de la crème of daguerreotype images in our collection, though every daguerreotype is exceptional in its own way. In part because they are unique — the technology only allowed one to be produced at a time at first, and later multi-lens cameras allowed for multiple images, but each from a minutely different perspective. And of course they could be copied, but something is lost in every copying process, including the process that produced the images below. Merci Monsieur Daguerre!
Daguerreotype of a Family in the 1850s with African-American servant
Young woman from the late 1840s daguerreotype
Beautifully hand colored daguerreotype portrait probably from Europe
Charming Young Lady in a Bonnet daguerreotype
Daguerreotype image of a Little Girl sitting on a Table
Well, behind schedule as befits such a dismal report, but as I warned in my last report time has come to turn toward more profitable enterprises. As it turned out, that other effort become more time-consuming than I expected. I had hoped to split my time 1/2 and 1/2, but instead have managed only one day per week to devote to photohistory, and almost all of the rest to the commercial enterprise. Now and then I snatch a half hour to enter more photographers in the database, or work on one of the image archives, but substantial progress requires more effort than that.
It will take another month or two to launch the new effort, then I may be able to achieve the 50-50 time split I originally hoped for. Until then, expect progress reports like this one for October:
2011 Oct 31
84538 Photographer records [1106 increase]
2335 Digital Images archives [56 increase]
1143 Pending Images collection [390 increase]
835 Dated Photograph Imprints from 681 photographers [no increase]
26 Pages Dating Old Photographs (132k) [no increase]
Very busy month here at ClassyArts.com in September, completed 75% of the site revisions planned out a couple months back. First, we replaced the artist section with one on dating photographs. Still less than 25% done, that section is at least (and at long last) online. We will trace its growth in future monthly summaries like this.
September also saw the initiation of the Dated Imprints Collection — the photographer imprints from our dated images collection. So far, those only span 1851-1892, but that collection is also a work in progress, with more un-entered imprints available than there are in the database so far. The plan is to take that forward to 1920, and include foreign dated imprints as well as the US and Canada ones entered to date. This too will be tracked in future monthly updates, to mark our progress in that department.
Another new section added in September is the Pending Images collection. The Image Archives continue to grow, but it is slow and tedious, with no more than a few hundred new images added in even our best month. So now there is a second database, Pending Images, which do not have the thumbnails and full descriptions of Archive images. The first month (actually, the last three weeks of the first month) over 750 images were listed in this new database. It should grow much faster than the main Archives, and provide access to images that would otherwise remain hidden in the files. Of course we will continue to track future progress on that project too.
Business, however, has been very slow. The economy is uncertain, and so people tend to more cautious with their cash, foregoing spending on such luxuries as hobbies, history-genealogy and art projects. My wife and I, however, have become fond of regular meals and a roof over our heads. All our income comes from this and other Internet-based projects. If this one does not contribute its fair share to that income, I have to devote less time to it — though it is my favorite site to work on. So until that turns around, expect future monthly reports to show slower progress, while we slog away at some more lucrative ventures.
Here is the progress summary for September:
2011 Sep 30
- 83,432 Photographer records [4150 increase]
- 2279 Digital Images archives [159 increase]
- NEW! 753 Pending Images collection [753 increase]
- 835 Dated Photograph Imprints from 681 photographers [44 imprints / 34 photographers increase]
- NEW! 26 Pages (of 82 planned) Dating Old Photographs (132k) [26 pgs / 132k increase]
