A young woman holding a book.
Category
Photographs
Date
1840 - 1860
Materials
Glass, Leatherette or leather, Wood
Measurements
114 x 97 x 6 mm
Collection
Fox Talbot Museum, Wiltshire
NT 1522385
Summary
A hand-coloured daguerreotype ninth-plate image, depicting a half-length portrait of a young woman sitting face on to the camera, looking slightly away. Her left hand is resting her lap, with apparently a finger in a book. Her right hand is resting on her lap and she has a ring on it. She is a wearing a large brooch at her throat and a long blue necklace, above a blue blouse.Her light coloured coat is elaborately embroidered, over a waistcoat and dress. She appears to be wearing 2 blue flowers in her hair. The image has been scratched to produce the effect of highlights at the cuffs, ring and book edges. A gold oval border is painted around the image. The 1/9th plate image is set behind a dark maroon glass mat which has a bevel-edged wide oval gold border the aperture and a narrow gold border around this, at a space of approximately 5mm. There is a rectangular cover glass. These layers are bound together by black tape on a wooden frame. Verso has a black leatherette type cover paper across the surface, affixed at the edges by the same black tape. The image shows deterioration, with a pronounced halo produced by oxidation of the silver.