From
the moment the Romantic painter, showman, and entrepreneur Louis-Jacques-Mandé
Daguerre revealed the details of his invention—photography—in August 1839, a
craze was born. “Daguerreotypomania” spread around the world like wildfire.
Daguerreotypes—magically precise one-of-a-kind images made directly in the
camera on highly polished silver-plated sheets of copper sensitized in iodine
and developed over mercury fumes—were soon being produced by talented artists
in lavishly appointed, big-city portrait studios and by traveling artisans
plying their trade from one small town to another.

In
America, daguerreotypes remained popular through-out the 1840s and 1850s,
sought equally by members of high society and by those who had never dreamt of
leaving their likenesses to posterity. Although his identity is now lost, this
gentleman must have been a man of means to afford a whole-plate portrait (the
largest standard size of daguerreotype) and so ornate a presentation.