Jesse H. Whitehurst
[Copy of a Painted Portrait]

Public Domain

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Images(3)

Artist Jesse H. WhitehurstAmerican, 1820–1875

CultureAmerican

Titles

[Copy of a Painted Portrait]

Date1850–1852

MediumDaguerreotype with applied color in leather case

DimensionsImage: 7 5/16 × 5 5/16 in. (18.6 × 13.5 cm)
Closed (Case): 9 × 7 3/16 × 13/16 in. (22.9 × 18.3 × 2.1 cm)
Open (Case): 9 × 14 3/16 × 9/16 in. (22.9 × 36.1 × 1.5 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the S. I. Morris Photography Endowment

Object number2015.404

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionWhitehurst was a successful and prolific daguerreotypist, largely in the South, establishing studios in Baltimore and Washington, through Virginia and into North Carolina. This work is a hand-colored daguerreotype of a painted portrait, and as such it tells a part of the story of photography’s role in the life of images: though each daguerreotype was one of a kind, the medium was capable of making accurate copies of a preexisting image so that many people could share it, just as today one might make copies of an ancestor’s photograph for many members of the family. With its presentation in a brass mat and leather case, just as one would see on a true daguerreotype portrait, and with the touches of reddish pigment enlivening the face, this image is momentarily convincing as a photographic image of a living person. In a postmodern age of appropriation—images of images—this work prompts us to question the nature of representation.
Provenance[Helder Costa, Arlington, Massachusetts,1982]; purchased by MFAH, 2015.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Incised, recto, bottom center of brass mat: WHITEHURST // COPY

Embossed in velvet lining of Daguerreotype case: J.H.WHITEHURST GALLERIES // WASHINGTON D.C. // BALTIMORE // RICHMOND // NORFOLK // PETERSBURG // & LYNCHBURG

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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