Purveyors of Antique Photographs

Early Images

The photographs offered on these pages are from a collection that resulted from over 35 years of searching for 19th century vintage photographs.  Presented here are a variety of  authentic antique images from the 1800's.We hope you enjoy the aesthetic as well as historic quality of these images.

The term “hard image” is used to refer to  photographs that are  made on  anything other than paper.

Daguerreotypes are on polished brass  (1839 - 1855  )

Ambrotypes are on glass  (1855 - 1865)

Tintypes or Ferrotypes are on metal.

 We will also be offering   paper images from the early beginnings of photography -

Cartes-de Visite, cabinet cards, Stereoviews (1850 - 1930) and other formats as well as related vintage photographica – cases, frames, albums and viewers.

 We hope that you enjoy these images as much as we do and look forward to your feedback. We are in the process of expanding our site to include a shopping cart. Until then, you can contact us by e-mail with any inquiries. And don't forget to sign up below for e-mail notices of new postings of images!

History of Photography

The first photograph is considered to be an image produced in 1826 by Nicéphore Niepce on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea. It was produced with a camera, and required an eight hour exposure in bright sunshine. In 1839 Jacques Daguerre developed a process using silver on a copper plate called the Daguerreotype. Almost at the same time, William Fox Talbot developed a different process called the calotype, using paper sheets covered with silver chloride. This process is much closer to the photographic process in use nowadays, as it produces a negative image that can be reused to produce several positive prints.

The Daguerreotype proved more popular as it responded to the demand for portraiture emerging from the middle classes during the Industrial Revolution. This demand, that could not be met in volume and in cost by oil painting, may well have been the push for the development of photography. Neither of the techniques involved, the camera obscura, and the photo sensitivity of silver salts, were 19th century discoveries. Camera obscura were used by artists in the 16th century, as an aid to sketches for paintings, and the photo-sensitivity of a silver nitrate solution was observed by Johann Schultze in 1724.

Ultimately, the modern photographic process came about from a series of refinements and improvements on the foundations laid by William Fox Talbot. Photography became available for the mass-market in 1901 with the introduction of the Kodak Brownie camera, and, more importantly, with the industrialization of film processing and printing. Very little has changed in principle since then, though color film has become the standard, and automatic focus and automatic exposure. For the enthusiast photographer processing black and white film, little has changed since the introduction of the 35mm film Leica camera in 1925.

Daguerreotype

The daguerreotype is named after its inventor, French artist and chemist Louis J.M. Daguerre, who announced its perfection (after years of experimentation) in 1839 (the French Academy of Sciences announced the process on January 9 of that year). Daguerre's patent was acquired by the French Government. On August 19, 1839 the French Government announced the invention a gift "Free to the World."

The daguerreotype was a positive-only process allowing no reproduction of the picture. The development of the image was effected by placing the exposed plate over a slightly heated (about 75?C) cup of mercury. The vapor of mercury condensed on those places where the light had acted in an almost exact ratio to the intensity of its action. This produced a picture in an amalgam, the vapor of which attached itself to the altered silver iodide. Proof that such was the case was subsequently afforded by the fact that the mercurial image could be removed by heat. The developing box was so constructed that it was possible to examine the picture through a yellow glass window while the image was being brought out. The next operation was to fix the picture by dipping it in a solution of hyposulphite of soda. The image produced by this method is so delicate that it will not bear the slightest handling, and has to be protected from being accidentally touched.

Daguerreotypy spread rapidly, except in England, where Daguerre had secretly patented his process before selling it to the French government.

In the early 1840s the invention was quickly introduced (within a matter of months) to artists in the United States by Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph. An exuberant market in portraits, often the work of itinerant artists who moved from town to town, sprang up.

People often believe that the daguerreotype was the most commonly used method of photography into the late part of the 19th century. Actually this process was used for only about 10 years, before it was overtaken by other processes:

• the Ambrotype introduced in 1854, a positive image on glass, with a black backing
• the Tintype or Ferrotype, an image on chemically-treated tin
• the albumen photograph, a paper photograph produced from large glass negatives most commonly used in American Civil War photography.