Agnes

Agnes


A pencilled inscription verso in a period hand identifies the sitter but this is a strange and problematic photograph. Something that looks like collodion emulsion is sloughing off at the upper edge of the image, where there's an addition of four numbers, which may be the date, 1862.

The peeling emulsion may well be collodion sloughing off the original negative or perhaps this is an earlier format, an ambrotype perhaps, which has been rephotographed. However, the addition of a date in that area is clearly deliberate, and that round knob-like shape doesn't appear to be accidental either. And that's without mentioning what a very unusual subject this is for a photograph in this period.

Photographer and location unidentified.
 


Code: 122773
© Paul Frecker 2024