Joseph C. G. Kennedy, Superintendent of the Census

Mathew B. Brady American, born Ireland

ca. 1857

Not on view

By the mid-1850s, the popularity of the one-of-a-kind daguerreotype was giving way to the advantages of reproducible paper prints from collodion-on-glass negatives. Matthew Brady, who learned the technique of the daguerreotype from Samuel F. B. Morse, was an early and active practitioner, eventually presiding over two gallery establishments in New York and one in Washington, D.C. He adopted the collodion process around 1854 and used it to assemble his documentation of the Civil War. Here, in an intriguing combination of the two techniques, Brady used a glass negative to re-photograph a daguerreotype portrait of a government bureaucrat, creating a strangely poetic picture of a picture.

Artwork Details

Title: Joseph C. G. Kennedy, Superintendent of the Census
Artist: Mathew B. Brady (American, born Ireland, 1823?–1896 New York)
Date: ca. 1857
Medium: Salted paper print from glass negative
Dimensions: Image: 22.5 x 15.9 cm (8 7/8 x 6 1/4 in.)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2005
Object Number: 2005.100.312
Curatorial Department: Photographs

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Medinet-Habu, John Beasley Greene American, Salted paper print from paper negative — Medinet-Habu
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The Town on the Hill, New Almaden, Carleton E. Watkins American, Albumen silver print from glass negative — The Town on the Hill, New Almaden
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