Unknown early portrait of lady in bonnet, printed later by Ramsay, Bridge of Allan, from mystery album
One of 140 images from a fascinating album. For more information see the full set
From 26-28 February I will be in the Truprint Photography Gallery at the Who Do You Think You Are? Live event at London’s Olympia. In the run up to that event, and with the help of show visitors over the three days, my aim is to use this album as an example of how Flickr, and the wider web community, can help identify these mystery, orphaned photograhs.
Just how many of these images can we identify, and what can we find out about the people they portray?
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8 comments
Elske67 wrote...
Beautiful!
lauralemur wrote...
I wonder if this was originally a painting, or a photo that was heavily re-touched? Looks like it may have originally been a daguerreotype, or other format pre-dating the cabinet card?
James wrote...
I think you've hit the nail on the head there as it's an image that I've been pondering over. I've spent the day at Olympia today looking at hundreds of images and it's these contradictory ones that have really stood out - there were many that were more recently produced images, including cabinet cards, that it was clear simply had to be earlier images that had been reproduced in a more recent format. One of the most amazing though was an ambrotype that was a copy of a daguerreotype - possibly one of the earliest ever copies of a photograph?!
Back to this one, I do feel there is a photograph under there as the true original, though what degree of re-touching has been applied, and at what stage, I am unsure of. I shall have to show it to my costume historian friend tomorrow.
lauralemur wrote...
I am always amazed at the quality and technical skill of the Victorian era photographers when they copied earlier images...I struggle to capture a good image of tins or ambros in my collection with a modern camera! I love to collect these early copies - they always facinate me for some reason. An ambro would be a very early example, a nice rare find, though there were dag copies of paintings. There are dags of people holding open dags in their hand, but I wonder if an example of a direct dag-to-dag copy can be found? Wouldn't that be a wonder?! You bring up a good point about the timing of the re-touching...perhaps the original image was heavily tinted, or perhaps this is even a copy of a prior re-touched copy? At any rate, the woman is beautiful and it is easy to understand why someone would want to preserve her image for future generations.
Susan wrote...
The difference in the black and white of the bonnet and face, and the sepia of the cloak is indeed mysterious. This is a fine album you found.
Jayne Shrimpton wrote...
Hi James
Yes this would definitely be a reprint (c. late 1870s-90s) of an earlier portrait. I saw a number of reprints at the show too - more than usual I think. This was quite a common practice and usually occurred soon after the person in the picture had died: copies of earlier photographs of them (or paintings, if the person was never photographed) were made so that family members would have pictures by which to remember them.
The original image is late 1850s or very early 1860s - definitely no later than 1862, as the shape of the bonnet had changed by then. It seems to have been quite popular at that time to be portrayed wearing outdoor garments - cloak, bonnet etc.
If the original was a photograph it must, then, have been either an ambrotype or a very early cdv. If so, it has, though, been retouched, which gives it this painted quality. As you know ambrotypes were often retouched by hand but sometimes the reason for retouching was enlargement. A much-enlarged photograph loses some of its original detail so often at that stage the enlarged picture was heavily retouched. Also I believe that some people rather liked the fact that their modest photograph could be enlarged and embellished in this way so as to look more like a (more expensive) painting!
Jayne
Joe B. wrote...
That's a nice image.
She's GORGEOUS!