TOP: A circa 1850 daguerreotype of gold miners colored by hand. Bottom: One of three images of the Capitol taken in 1846 by John Plumbe. (Photos courtesy of Matthew Isenburg.)

High Fidelity
Daguerreotypy, the first widely embraced form of photography, became an international sensation when unveiled in 1839. The first monochromatic images of people and places on a highly polished silver background had a stunning impact. Never before had individuals seen the world around them—or themselves—depicted with such fidelity. “Imagine how limited our perspective would be if our firsthand information was restricted to what we could [witness] with our own eyes,” observes Seattle collector Laddie Kite. “Such was the world before . . . Daguerre [gave us] the first photographs.”

The French artist, chemist, inventor and entrepreneur Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (Nicephore Niepce collaborated with Daguerre before the former died in 1833) perfected the process, which used a copper sheet plated with mirror-polished silver, sensitized by iodine, bromine and chlorine, to capture a camera image. The exposed plate was developed by mercury vapor, fixed with a solution of hyposulfite of soda and fitted under glass in a protective case.

SOUTHWORK & HAWES’ Two Women Posed with a Chair. F(Photo courtesy of Amon Carter Museum.)

Championed in the United States by famed scientist and inventor Samuel Morse, daguerreotypes caught on with astonishing speed here. Studios sprang up within a few months of the French government revealing details of the process. Early daguerreotypes were crude, but by 1843, advances in technology allowed the industry to emerge in full flower. Crisp, brilliant images, often artfully hand-colored, replaced early experimental ones. Portrait studios in large Eastern cities catered to the rich and famous, while daguerreotypists set up shop in hundreds of towns and itinerant practitioners roamed the countryside making portraits and capturing outdoor scenes. Exteriors of cities, buildings, monuments, ruins and sites precisely recorded historical scenes for the first time. When the western gold rush kicked off in 1848, daguerreotype images of the miners, mining camps and other California scenes provided the first instance of photojournalism.

“The daguerreian period, to me, combines high art, folk art and history in a richer way than, arguably, any other period in photography,” says Keith F. Davis, fine art programs director at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City and curator of the Hallmark Photographic Collection. “It’s a remarkably rich artistic legacy.”

Perhaps 90 percent of daguerreotypes (also called “dags” and “cased images”) were portraits. The personages of the day—Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Brown, Daniel Webster, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe, among others—sat for them. So did millions of ordinary people. “These small, lovely cased images possess the almost supernatural ability to connect us visually to the past, and in a very physical sense as well,” Kite says.

A PORTRAIT of Albert Sands Southworth, circa 1840, valued at more than $100,000. (Photo courtesy of Dennis Waters.)

At the zenith of the process in 1853, Romer estimates, 3 million to 4 million daguerreotypes were made in the United States—in a nation with perhaps 25 million people. “There were more daguerreotypes made in America than anywhere else,” he says—about 15 million of them in total. The heyday was brief. Daguerreotypy flourished through the 1840s and into the 1850s, but then fell victim to its shortcomings. The plates were small (standard “sixth” plates measure 23¼4 by 31¼4 inches; full plates just 61¼2 by 81¼2 inches), they were relatively heavy and bulky in their cases and they required a carefully placed light source for optimal viewing. Crucially, the positive-plate technology meant only one picture could be produced per exposure.

Other more advanced photographic processes, such as tintypes, gradually diminished the appeal of daguerreotypes. In the early 1860s, glass negative-based paper photography matured to allow multiple exact copies of every exposure. This breakthrough allowed photographer and former daguerreotypist Mathew Brady to create and distribute what would become the defining photographs of the Civil War. In fewer than 20 years, daguerreotypy went from phenomenon to international craze to obsolete technology.

“DAGUERREOTYPE collecting has clearly moved out of the realm of the antiquarian to the forefront of the photography market. While the whole daguerreotype market has moved upward, the top of the market has moved upward exponentially.”

The millions of plates left behind in parlors, attics and basements endured decades of disregard. Undervalued artistically and historically, they were ignored by museums in particular. Many were discarded as worthless, and they routinely suffered from neglect and mistreatment. They showed up in bins in antique stores, priced at a few dollars each. “Up to 15 years ago, the daguerreotype market had a flea-market sensibility,” says New Hampshire collector and Internet dealer Dennis Waters.

Staring Daguerres
That all changed as collectors such as Isenburg began to spur appreciation of daguerreotype photographs beyond their tchotchke status. High-profile, high-price auctions in the late 1990s confirmed their appeal. Perloff recently surveyed his publication’s database and found that the top 30 auction prices paid for daguerreotypes have all appeared since 1996, and the top 10 were recorded since 1999. Christie’s London 2003 auction of French daguerreotypist Girault de Prangey’s images of Greek, Egyptian and Roman antiquities made in 1842 and 1843 produced the top three, including $922,488 paid for the image of the Temple of Jupiter in Athens. Each of the trio of plates more than tripled its preauction estimate.

SOUTHWORTH & HAWES portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe, circa 1843. (Photo courtesy of George Eastman House.)

“The best pieces are bringing more than we could possibly have imagined,” Bethel says. “If you look at the presale estimate for the last 10 years for any major piece, even the most aggressive estimates were left in the dust.”

However, according to Waters, these sensational daguerreotypes—the large-format dramatic examples with artistic and historical value and in superb condition—are a miniscule part of the overall market. Romer estimates that approximately 1,500 masterpiece plates exist. Sotheby’s Bethel thinks there are only hundreds if daguerreotypes held by institutions and companies and in unshakable private collections are removed from consideration.

Waters says the best examples currently command $250,000 or more (his top sale so far: $300,000), but the market quickly falls into the $75,000 to $150,000 range. Then, he says, prices drop rapidly to the $10,000 level. The bulk of the daguerreotype market runs between $200 and $4,000, but common portraits in middling condition are available for $100 or less.

These price levels may rise if the current milestone exhibition of Southworth & Hawes images has the influence some expect. “Young America” opened in New York at the International Center of Photography in June. It is now at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography, where it will show through January 8. Between January 28 and April 9, the exhibit will show at the Addison Gallery of Art in Andover, Mass. Because of the interest and excitement this show has generated, Waters says, “Prices of every daguerreotype of merit with technical perfection, artistic excellence and really strong condition will go up much quicker for a period of time than ever before.”

Cher Daguerres
The value of a daguerreotype is determined by the interplay of its quality, content and condition. The best radiate a special quality, says Yonkers, N.Y., dealer-collector Larry Gottheim. That spark is what motivated collectors who started in the 1960s and 1970s, when plates sold for a few dollars. These early collectors bought what they liked, immersed themselves in the history and lore of daguerreotypy, and gradually became experts. “The people who purchased very early were sophisticated and knowledgeable, they knew exactly what they were doing, and they were willing to pay what it took to get great pieces,” Bethel says. “They managed to keep the daguerreian market somewhat underground for years.”

MORE INFORMATION. . Two of the best sources of basic daguerreotype information and background are online. The 900-member Daguerreian Society’s website (www.daguerre.org) is heavy on history, while Dennis Waters’ site (www.finedags.com) provides an entertainingly opinionated tutorial on daguerreotype collecting.

They also managed to keep it largely exclusive. “The highest prices paid for daguerreotypes for decades were paid privately,” Bethel explains. In fact, the $1 million barrier against which the public daguerreotype market is now pushing may be old news for top collectors who operate under the radar. Eastman House’s Romer suggests that while there has not yet been a public $1 million daguerreotype sale, he is certain there have been numerous private ones. Bethel agrees.
 
“[Daguerreotype collecting] is a nuanced field, and requires a special kind of passion and knowledge,” Hallmark’s Davis says. “And the passion can’t be invented out of nothing, and the knowledge can’t be gained overnight. Put those qualities together, and that’s what the major players—the Matt Isenburgs of the world—today have.”

For his part, Isenburg says his days as an active acquirer of expensive daguerreotypes may be over. “I’m a guy who put together a major and important collection that reflects a piece of American history. But I don’t want to spend $100,000 or $200,000 on a daguerreotype when I bought the same thing 20 years ago for $3,000. I’ll leave that to the people who have come in in the last five or 10 years.

“And, by the way,” he adds, “they’re right, and I’m wrong—the best stuff is going to keep going up.” 

Richard John Pietschmann, based in Los Angeles, is a regular contributor to Worth.