Existing comment:
Unidentified couple:
This portrait is typical of the ambrotypes that Mathew Brady produced for a brief period in the mid-1850s using the method patented by James A. Cutting. According to Cutting's system, the emulsion, or image-bearing, side of the ambrotype's glass plate was sealed to a second piece of glass using a coating of balsam of fir, a viscous resin that created a transparent bond. Once sealed in this manner, the ambrotype could be placed in a presentation case that opened from either side, with the case's velvet pads providing the dark background against which to view the image.
Mathew Brady, c 1856 |