[Woman]
Photograph
Southworth & Hawes
Maker
Albert Sands Southworth, American, 1811–1894; Josiah Johnson Hawes, American, 1808–1901
[Woman]
ca. 1850
Daguerreotype with applied color
Image: 7 7/8 × 6 1/8 in. (20 × 15.5 cm)
Overall (whole plate): 8 7/16 × 6 3/8 in. (21.5 × 16.2 cm)
Case: 10 1/16 × 7 11/16 × 3/8 in. (25.6 × 19.5 × 1 cm)
Gift of Alden Scott Boyer, 1951
1974.0193.0061
Inscriptions Hallmark on recto, BLC: [star] DOUBLE \ J P 40 [see The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes (Sobieszek and Appel, 1980) #9, p. 113]
TextTo address the lack of color in early daguerreotype portraits, studio staff often applied pigments to the image surface by hand. Nancy Southworth Hawes of the renowned Southworth & Hawes daguerreotype firm assisted in coloring daguerreotypes produced by the portrait studio, adding flesh tones to skin and accentuating accoutrements worn by the studio’s upper-class clientele. Hawes had moved to Boston around 1841 to help her brother, Albert Sands Southworth, open his new daguerreotype studio. She was involved with the daily operations and the coloring of plates before Josiah Johnson Hawes, her future husband, became her brother’s business partner in 1843.
