Self-Portrait Reading
SOLD March 2004 |
Primitive ninth plate daguerreotype, self-portrait by Richard Dykes Alexander with his wife, Anne Alexander (née Dillwyn). Uncased, housed in English-style ninth plate brass mat. Mid-to-early 1840s.
Richard Dykes Alexander was a banker, English Quaker, temperance advocate and most importantly an amateur photographer who left behind a significant body of salt and albumen prints. This early, experimental daguerreotype by Alexander recaptures the struggles and successes of those who were first attracted to the newly-discovered medium of photography. Despite its flaws it is already an artistically ambitious composition, showing a scene from family life with Alexander reading from a letter, while his wife Anne looks on.
Provenance: Sotheby's, London, June 28, 1978; Christie's South Kensington, April 30, 1997.
