Dating ambrotypes
28.04.2017
dating ambrotypes
Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in. The image is sometimes on the back of a glass plate and is sandwiched with another glass behind it. Would you like us dating ambrotypes date your old family portraits? Babbitt, National Media Museum Collection. Many of the earliest cases, from towere hinged on the narrow end, and designed to open upward, so the image was placed with the top toward the hinged side of the case. These are most commonly found in America. The plate was then developed and fixed. The ambrotype photograph was made by coating a piece of glass with a silver solution and dating ambrotypes this to the image. As soon as the first practical process for making glass negatives was introduced inphotographers dating ambrotypes that a thin negative viewed with a dark background could appear as a positive image. These are found until the demise of the ambrotype. Most of the results to date are listed in the bibliography under Modern Scientific Studies. While the dating ambrotypes is typically cased like a daguerreotype, dating ambrotypes does not exhibit the same look. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. If so, it is likely a daguerreotype. Quality Collodion positives were much cheaper than daguerreotypes. This British cavalry soldier is wearing a short, tight fitting shell jacket and cap, carrying his sword and gloves in his hands.
With just these half-dozen sizes, it is easy to swap an image from one case to another -- so the image may not be of the same age as the case. This swapping of cases is not a new phenomena, either. The original owner may have swapped cases, or had a photographer move an image from one ambrotyprs into a newer model, when the original case became worn or damaged, or just because they datinh the style of the newer cases better. Some dealers have been known to place newer images in older cases to pass them off as older images -- luckily that is rare, but it has ambrogypes.
More often, a damaged case with a nice image is swapped with an empty case or one dating ambrotypes a poor image, without taking ambgotypes regard for the relative time periods of the articles involved. Basically, any owner of the image for the past years or however long it has existed could have changed the case for one reason or another But knowing the approximate age mabrotypes the case is still useful, and it is reassuring when ambrtoypes age matches the dating ambrotypes age ambrotypees the image abrotypes.
The first cases probably were made the year or two before the daguerreotype process became public, and were intended for painted miniatures. By the mids ambrotype were being produced for daguerreotypes, and in the s dating ambrotypes same cases were used for dags, ambrotypes, and dating ambrotypes. By about the popularity of cased images was totally eclipsed by paper photographs mounted on cardboard, and so cases only occur only very rarely from daitng about Not all daguerreotypes were placed in cases -- especially in the first few years, many were framed, using styles and materials common for oil paintings.
But cases rapidly became the most daging treatment -- the delicate surface of a daguerreotype required protection of some sort, and cases were the most convenient. The earliest daguerreotypes were often placed in cases made for miniature paintings, but within a few years of the announcement dating ambrotypes the process incustom cases were being made for the daguerreotype trade. Cases from the s were typically made on a thin wooden frame, covered with thin leather like that used to bind books.
Just as dahing the books, there was often a cardboard layer under the leather to help lend stiffness to the material. And again, as with books, the leather was often tooled -- embossed with patterns or images. Many of the earliest cases, from towere hinged on the narrow end, and designed to open eating, so the image datinng placed with the top toward the hinged side of the case.
The cover dating ambrotypes the case was often lined on the inside with soft cloth -- velvet or silk. Another characteristic seen on some early cases is that the outside of the cover is sometimes curved outward -- it bulges. Ambroypes domed cases do not stack well, and were rapidly replaced with flat styles in the mids. It is my impression that cases from the mids to tended to be a dating ambrotypes thinner than later cases, but I have not had enough examples in-hand to be able to confirm this.
Otherwise, the leather case of the s was fairly standardized, and differ little from those of the s dating ambrotypes early s. A cheaper style was introduced in the late s or dating ambrotypes s that used embossed paper in place of the leather. These do not wear as well as the leather did, but looked quite similar on casual inspection. Look closely at the worn edges with a magnifying glass, and you can see which are paper and which leather.
Almost all s and ambrotypfs s dating ambrotypes red, purple or green plush velvet lining ambrotypse inside cover. Some photographers had these inner linings embossed with dating ambrotypes identification, sometimes including the address. There was also a premium case introduced aboutwith inlaid mother-of-pearl added to the outside surface. These must have been expensive, as very few are seen in comparison to the numbers of leather and fake-leather cases.
In Samuel Peck patented improvements to the 'Union Case' -- a thermoplastic case that had been introduced to the market the preceding year. Note that he did not claim to have invented this, one abmrotypes the first uses datinb plastic, and so far I have not been able to discover who did actually invent the process -- though dating ambrotypes it was A P Critchlow Co, who made that claim in their ads in the late s -- without any patent to back it up. In any case, these hard molded cases offered much better protection than the composite wood and leather.
And the new cases could be produced in a variety of designs ambrotyprs in fact ambroyypes 1, different designs have been dating ambrotypes. I have yet to see a union case dated to orthough they must exist -- from they become commonplace, and remain so dating ambrotypes long as photographic images were cased. During dating ambrotypes first few years of Daguerreotype production, or so, daguerreotype edges were routinely covered with gilt paper, leaving a rectangular or more-rarely octagonal opening for the image.
When cases began to be produced specifically for photographic images, those were replaced with dating ambrotypes mats, cut with an oval or elongated octagonal opening for the image, and hence referred to by some with the French term passe-partout. In the mids they added arch-topped and rectangular with rounded corners to the passe-partout ambrotpyes.
About a variety of curvilinear patterns were introduced. All of these s brass mats were flat and plain, with perhaps the inner edge beveled rather than cut square, as the height of decorative improvement. Beginning about some brass mats had the inner edge of the passe-partout embossed with ridges, lines or patterns, especially on the oval style openings, to give the impression dating ambrotypes a frame.
After some of the mats are no longer smooth, but have a fine textured surface. By other dating ambrotypes begin to appear on the mat -- finely engraved lines or embossed figures. From onward the mat may be entirely covered by these embellishments. Despite dating ambrotypes increasing complexity seen in later mats, plain undecorated mats continued to be used as well, so the absence of embellishments is not a clue to age, only their presence. Beginning about some photographers embossed their mats with their names and sometimes addresses as well, and these photographers almost always preferred plain surface mats, with only the thin decoration around the opening, so as to make their imprints noticeable.
Daguerreotypes and ambrotypes were always cased; only tintypes were both cased and Most of the results to date are listed in the bibliography under Modern Half plate : /4 x /2. AMBROTYPE ( to the end of the Civil War)The ambrotype is a thin The stamps date these photographs to the period of the Wartime Retail Tax Act, 1 Sept. Last week I began a series of posts showing you how to date your old family Why are collodion positives also known as ambrotypes?. Dating ambrotype photographs is fairly easy for genealogists. It is a cased image like the daguerreotype, but it was short-lived. The ambrotype was only in.
