Self-Portrait in Painting Studio

c. 1843

Camille Dolard

(French, 1810–1884)

France, 19th century

daguerreotype (full-plate)

Platemark: 20.5 x 15 cm (8 1/16 x 5 7/8 in.); Matted: 55.9 x 45.7 cm (22 x 18 in.)

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1997.56

Location: not on view

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Description

Many of the best early photographers were artists who put their training in figural arrangement, light and shadow, and composition to good use in the new medium. Dolard, a portrait painter, may have offered photographs to prospective clients of lesser means. In this image, possibly made as an advertisement for his studio, he identifies himself as a painter, surrounded by the tools of the trade. The coat and the hookah suggest an interest in orientalism, a fashion that occupied many mid-19th-century artists. A remarkable technical achievement, this whole-plate image required Dolard to remain motionless for well over a minute, at least 30 times longer than the exposure for the smaller plates in the case below.