BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: Antebellum Portraits by Mathew Brady

DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: Antebellum Portraits by Mathew Brady:

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Description of Pictures: Antebellum Portraits by Mathew Brady
June 16, 2017 – June 3, 2018
Mathew Brady may be best known today for his Civil War–era photographs, but he established his reputation as an internationally acclaimed portrait photographer more than a decade before the war. Brady opened his first daguerreotype portrait studio in New York City in 1844, just five years after the introduction of the first commercially practical form of photography. By 1851, he was among the most successful camera artists in the United States, and claimed top honors for his daguerreotypes at the Crystal Palace exhibition in London. When a new photographic medium—the ambrotype—began to eclipse the daguerreotype in the mid-1850s, Brady adapted, creating some of the most beautiful ambrotype portraits ever produced. As the decade drew to a close, Brady’s studio remained in the vanguard of photographic innovation, producing handsome, salted-paper print portraits from glass negatives.
This Daguerreian Gallery exhibition traces the trajectory of Brady’s early career through portrait daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and salted-paper prints in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection. Contemporary engravings, as well as several advertising broadsides Brady used to market his portrait enterprise, will also be included. Ann Shumard, the Portrait Gallery’s senior curator of photographs, is the curator of this exhibition.

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[1] SIPGMB_170616_001.JPG	[2] SIPGMB_170616_007.JPG	[3] SIPGMB_170616_019.JPG
[4] SIPGMB_170616_024.JPG	[5] SIPGMB_170616_029.JPG	[6] SIPGMB_170616_046.JPG
[7] SIPGMB_170616_052.JPG	[8] SIPGMB_170616_059.JPG	[9] SIPGMB_170616_063.JPG
[10] SIPGMB_170616_070.JPG	[11] SIPGMB_170616_076.JPG	[12] SIPGMB_170616_080.JPG
[13] SIPGMB_170616_086.JPG	[14] SIPGMB_170616_090.JPG	[15] SIPGMB_170616_094.JPG
[16] SIPGMB_170616_098.JPG	[17] SIPGMB_170616_103.JPG	[18] SIPGMB_170616_108.JPG
[19] SIPGMB_170616_114.JPG	[20] SIPGMB_170616_119.JPG	[21] SIPGMB_170616_124.JPG
[22] SIPGMB_170616_129.JPG	[23] SIPGMB_170616_135.JPG	[24] SIPGMB_170616_142.JPG
[25] SIPGMB_170616_152.JPG	[26] SIPGMB_170616_159.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SIPGMB_170616_001.JPG: Antebellum Portraits by Mathew Brady
2. SIPGMB_170616_007.JPG: Thomas Cole, 1801-1848 Born Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, England Artist Thomas Cole was a founding member of the Hudson River School of American painting, which sought to capture the sublime grandeur of the nation's natural landscape. Believing that the best art also conveyed a moral lesson, Cole achieved his greatest fame with two series of allegorical paintings entitled The Course of Empire (1836) and The Voyage of Life (1841). From the outset of his career, Mathew Brady courted major artists and welcomed the opportunity to daguerreotype them. This portrait is one of two known copies Brady made of his original daguerreotype of Cole, which is now in the collection of the Library of Congress. Half-plate copy daguerreotype, c 1845
3. SIPGMB_170616_019.JPG: Dolley Madison Anna Payne One of the nation's most memorable first ladies, Dolley Madison remained popular long after the presidency of her husband, James Madison (1809–17). When she returned as a widow to live in Washington in 1837, she was embraced as the grande dame of capital society. Mathew Brady was understandably eager to secure a sitting with the venerable former first lady. He enlisted the aid of Washington-based newspaper editor Thomas Ritchie, who wrote to her in May 1848, urging that she pose for Brady's camera. The appeal succeeded, and while visiting Washington that summer, Brady created several daguerreotypes of Dolley Madison, including this one with her niece, represented by this copy.
4. SIPGMB_170616_024.JPG: Mathew B. Brady Born Ireland When a glowing article entitled "M. B. Brady and the Photographic Art" appeared in the inaugural issue of the Photographic Art Journal in January 1851, it was accompanied by this lithographic portrait by French-born artist Francis D'Avignon. Brady had worked recently with D'Avignon to produce the Gallery of Illustrious Americans -- a series of handsome lithographic portraits of famed politicians, military officers, and men of letters based on Brady's daguerreotypes. Although praised in the press as a "most magnificent publication," this ambitious project was not a financial success. Francis D'Avignon, 1851
5. SIPGMB_170616_029.JPG: Mathew B. Brady Juliet ("Julia") Handy Brady Ellen Brady Haggerty This portrait of Mathew Brady, his wife Juliet, and Brady's sister Mrs. Haggerty was probably taken about the time of Brady's marriage. Brady's name has become synonymous in America with the daguerreotype and early American photography, to the point that early photographic images are almost automatically assumed to be by Brady. In the 1850s, he was at the midpoint of his career, having established himself both artistically and commercially as a photographer. By 1858 he would open a studio in Washington, to be managed by Alexander Gardner, possibly with money provided by Brady's wife's family. Throughout his career Mathew Brady sought recognition as an artist. He advertised his skills as a maker of pleasing images and promised his clientele results that would rival "the highest efforts of the painter." This daguerreotype exhibits the careful lighting, pleasing symmetry, and naturalness of expression that earned Brady the admiration of his contemporaries. It depicts him with his wife, Julia (left), and his sister, Ellen (right), in a pose that underscores their strong familial bond. When Ellen Haggerty was widowed a few years after this portrait was made, the Bradys -- who had no children of their own -- adopted Ellen's young son, Thomas. c 1851
6. SIPGMB_170616_046.JPG: Charles Loring Elliott Regarded by his contemporaries as one of the nation's finest portraitists, Charles Loring Elliott painted more than seven hundred portraits representing many of mid-nineteenth-century America's most prominent businessmen, political leaders, and cultural figures. Elliott "spoke enthusiastically of the Daguerreian art" and strove to match the clarity and detail of photographic images in his paintings. Not surprisingly, he often employed daguerreotypes -- including those from the studio of his friend Mathew Brady -- as the sources for his portraits. A self-portrait that Elliott painted around 1850 bears a close resemblance to this Brady daguerreotype, which may have served as a study for that work.
7. SIPGMB_170616_052.JPG: George Henry Thomas In the Mexican American War, West Point graduate George Henry Thomas served with distinction at the battles of Monterrey and Buena Vista. A southern-born officer who later chose to remain with the Union army during the Civil War, Thomas would be hailed as "the rock of Chickamauga" for tenaciously holding his ground on that Georgia battlefield in September 1863. This daguerreotype's embossed velvet case pad documents the expansion of Brady's photography business in 1853. It lists the address of his original gallery at 205 Broadway, but also includes that of his new, larger gallery, which opened at 359 Broadway in March of that year. 1853
8. SIPGMB_170616_063.JPG: Martin Van Buren Born Kinderhook, New York Known as "the Little Magician" for his skill in adroitly navigating the political landscape, Martin Van Buren rose to prominence through a series of elective offices in New York State. After serving as vice president during Andrew Jackson's second term (1833–37), he was elected president in 1836. By one account, Van Buren kept his portrait appointment with Brady even though a terrible storm was raging. When Brady asked the former president why he had braved such weather to come to the gallery, Van Buren declared that he never broke an engagement if it were at all possible to keep it. c 1852
9. SIPGMB_170616_070.JPG: First Premium New-York Daguerrian Miniature Gallery Within a year of opening his first daguerrian gallery in New York City, Mathew Brady placed this advertisement in the pages of the New-York Daily Tribune on February 1, 1845.
10. SIPGMB_170616_090.JPG: M.B. Brady at the World's Fair in London, c 1853 In 1851, Mathew Brady submitted forty-eight portrait daguerreotypes to the "Great Exhibition" -- the vast international fair presented by Britain's Prince Albert at the Crystal Palace in London. When jurors pronounced his daguerreotypes "excellent for beauty of execution," Brady proudly claimed one of the fair's highly coveted prize medals. Well aware of the marketing value of such an honor, Brady touted his prize in advertisements such as this full page from a business directory. Here, images of the prize medal, with its profile portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, attest to Brady's international reputation for excellence.
11. SIPGMB_170616_094.JPG: Brady's National Gallery of Daguerreotypes, c 1852: In this advertisement, Mathew Brady proclaimed his Broadway gallery to be "one of the largest and best arranged in the world" and cited his numerous awards as confirmation that he was "second to no Daguerrean in this or any other country."
12. SIPGMB_170616_098.JPG: John Frederick Kensett
13. SIPGMB_170616_103.JPG: John W. Draper, 1811-1882 Scientist John W. Draper's pioneering investigations of radiant energy were critical to the emerging field of spectrum analysis. His study of the properties of light also led him to experiment with photography. In partnership with Samuel F. B. Morse in 1840, Draper opened a daguerreian portrait studio on the rooftop of the New York University building where he chaired the medical school's departments of chemistry and physiology. The oval die stamp visible in the lower left corner of this portrait's brass mat indicates that Brady produced this ambrotype of Draper was produced using methods patented by American photographer James A. Cutting in 1854. 1856
14. SIPGMB_170616_108.JPG: Frederick W. Lander, 1821-1862 Civil engineer Frederick W. Lander played a pivotal role in facilitating overland migration in mid-nineteenth-century America. In 1858, after serving as the lead scout for the central route of the transcontinental railroad, he surveyed and oversaw construction in the Wyoming Territory of the Lander Trail -- a lengthy segment of the first national wagon road. Lander is believed to have posed for this portrait in 1857––the year Secretary of the Interior Jacob Thompson appointed him to serve as chief engineer for the survey team tasked with developing the route for the wagon road. c 1857
15. SIPGMB_170616_114.JPG: John Pelham, 1838-1863 Born Benton County, Alabama John Pelham was within weeks of graduating from West Point in the spring of 1861 when he resigned to join the Confederate army. Posted to Virginia, Pelham earned the admiration of cavalry general J.E.B. Stuart, who provided him with horses to transform his battery into a mobile unit. Demonstrating the effectiveness of this "horse artillery" at Antietam and Fredericksburg, he won glowing praise from his superiors, including General "Stonewall" Jackson. In March 1863 Pelham was mortally wounded in a cavalry engagement. When Brady made this portrait in his New York City gallery, John Pelham was still a West Point cadet. 1858
16. SIPGMB_170616_119.JPG: John C. Fremont, 1813-1890 Born Savannah, Georgia During a series of expeditions into the West in the 1840s, John C. Fr�mont created detailed maps and reports that fueled American expansion. Hailed as a national hero for identifying a route through the Rocky Mountains, Fr�mont was elected in 1849 as California's first U.S. senator. In 1856 he became the Republican Party's first presidential candidate. Brady's earliest portrait of Fr�mont was in the form of a daguerreotype taken around the time of his election to the Senate. This ambrotype of the explorer-turned-politician was created several years later, most likely during Fr�mont's unsuccessful campaign for president. c 1856
17. SIPGMB_170616_124.JPG: Abraham Lincoln This photograph played a significant role in shaping the public image of Republican hopeful Abraham Lincoln during the 1860 presidential campaign. Taken at Brady's New York gallery on February 27, the carefully crafted portrait revealed a candidate whose dignified bearing stood in sharp contrast to the unflattering characterizations circulated by his detractors. Brady photographed Lincoln using a large-format glass-plate negative, from which a salted-paper print was made. That print was retouched by one of Brady's artists to produce a more pleasing image and then rephotographed. The resulting copy negative yielded prints such as this one, which reflected the retoucher's enhancements. 1860
18. SIPGMB_170616_129.JPG: Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865 The May 26, 1860, edition of Harper's Weekly included a biography of Abraham Lincoln, who had just won the Republican Party's nomination for president. The national convention had opened on May 16 in Chicago, a plus for the Illinois-raised Lincoln, but the frontrunner was William Seward of New York. Seward, however, had weakened his chances among moderate Republicans with his former antislavery radicalism. Lincoln's less-adamant position -- opposing only the extension of slavery into the territories -- was viewed as giving him strength in the "battleground" states of the lower North, which the Republicans had lost in the 1856 election. There were 465 delegates packed into the Chicago convention hall. Seward won on the first two ballots, with Lincoln coming in second. On the third ballot, four Ohioans switched their votes to Lincoln, followed by a wild stampede of delegates for the "rail splitter." On May 26, 1860, the illustrated newspaper Harper's Weekly presented its readers with a large-scale portrait of Abraham Lincoln, who had secured the Republican Party's nomination for president only a week earlier. Newspapers at that time lacked the technology to publish photographic images. For this reason, Harper's Weekly relied on one of its artists to produce an engraving of Lincoln -- based on Mathew Brady's photograph -- that could be printed along with the paper's text. The publication enjoyed a circulation estimated at 200,000 in 1860, ensuring that Lincoln's portrait and its "PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRADY" credit line would reach a vast audience. Unidentified artist, after Mathew B. Brady, 1860
19. SIPGMB_170616_135.JPG: Brady's Daguerreotypes, 1854: Mathew Brady placed this full-page advertisement in the Illustrated American Biography, a publication that marketed itself as a biographical volume but was actually a glorified business directory. With its cutaway image of a camera, Brady's ad presents a fanciful view of the process by which sunlight passes through the camera's lens to produce an image.
20. SIPGMB_170616_142.JPG: Brady's New Daguerreotype Saloon, New York, 1853 As Manhattan development pushed further uptown in the 1850s, Mathew Brady kept pace by opening a new, handsomely appointed gallery at 359 Broadway. On June 11, 1853, New York's Illustrated News published this interior view of Brady's gallery's, noting, "The reception saloon is furnished with richness and artistic taste. A large collection of daguerreotypes of eminent characters adorn its walls, which are excellently executed, and well worth a visit from all who desire to witness American and European celebrities. Both citizens and strangers will be pleased to observe the great progress of the art here displayed, and we cordially wish Mr. Brady every success in his new enterprise."
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