PLATE: M

DESCRIPTION: Quarter-plate daguerreotype mounted behind paper mat and glass in an early top-opening miniature case. The thick plate measures about 3 3/16 x 3 15/16 inches (8 x 10 cm). Three young people--a man and two women--stand posed tightly together. The eyes of the man and one woman are partly or tightly closed. The eyes of the woman in the middle remain open though apparently under stress.

The image shows evidence of tinting. It is probably reversed left to right. There is an odd arrangement of draped clothing between the man and one woman. A crude curtain or blanket serves as backdrop.

This image was not found with the plate box images. It was found over twenty years ago in a Lynchburg, Virginia antique shop with no provenance of any kind.


Quarter-plate daguerreotype Plate "M"
(Writer's collection.)

WRITTEN ON BACK: Nothing..

POSSIBLE LENS: To advance an admittedly highly speculative hypothesis--this image could be an example of a missing link in Dr. Draper's lens sequence. Evidently from 23 September to 7 October 1839 Draper first experimented with a lens of five inches diameter, then four inches diameter (and possibly three inches diameter) for portraiture. After 7 October Draper probably halted experimentation when classes started at New York University. He had not yet accomplished a portrait that satisfied him as a successful and practical product. All results up to this time posed problem either in result or in easy manipulation.

Draper was not satisfied with his portrait technique until December when he perfected (except for defects about the eyes caused by intensity of direct sunlight) the outdoor use of a one-inch lens. "The first portrait I obtained last December was with a common spectacle glass, only an inch in diameter, arranged at the end of a cigar box."[128] (It had a focal length of fourteen inches). With this achievement Draper apparently dropped work on portraiture until Morse approached him after viewing Wolcott's commercialized gallery product in February 1840.

Every major lens system Draper utilized for portrait experiment appears to be represented within the plate box except an example of Draper's successful December portrait with the one-inch lens. Why was no such example included in the plate box? The answer may lie in the characteristics of such a portrait as described by Draper: "A lens of this diameter answers very well for plates four inches by three."[129] Such a quarter-size plate could not fit inside the smaller plate box.

DRAPER QUOTATION: See above.

HYPOTHESIS: The following circumstantial evidence supports the admittedly highly speculative hypothesis that this quarter-plate daguerreotype could be an example of Dr. Draper's December portraiture with a one-inch spectacle lens.

1--Draper described all the proofs he obtained with this camera system as "defective about the eyes" owing to the difficulty of posing in open sunshine. Plate M is indeed defective about the eyes.[130]

Draper further noted: "Those who undertake Daguerreotype portraitures, will of course arrange the back-grounds of their pictures according to their own tastes. When one that is quite uniform is desired, a blanket, or a cloth of a drab colour, properly suspended, will be found to answer very well. . . . Different parts of the dress, . . . require intervals, differing considerably, to be fairly copied."[131]

The backdrop of the image fits. More importantly, purposeful arrangement of the draped white cloth between the man and woman (this drape is pinned to the dress of the woman in the center and is not part of her clothing) appears to create the interval called for in the above quotation.[132] Without such intervals the camera focus might over or under-expose dark or light parts of the picture.



Quarter-plate daguerreotype Plate "M"
(Writer's collection.).


Finally, Draper wrote (brackets mine): "In this instance, . . . owing to magnitude of focal length compared with the aperture, but little difficulty ensues from chromatic aberration [an indistinct, hazy appearance]; but when with the same focal length [fourteen inches] the aperture is increased to three or four inches, then the dispersion becomes very sensible."[133]

Draper possibly meant that his one-inch lens solved depth of field problems with lenses of larger aperture (the term "depth of field" was not yet available to define the phenomena that Draper was trying to describe). The one-inch lens captured a sharp representation across the entire field of the portrait. Plate M appears to demonstrate this adequate depth of field. From the backdrop to the hands of the three people photographed, everything was in good focus.

2--At first, the recovery of this image in Lynchburg, Virginia appears to rule out the possibility it was made by Dr. Draper in far distant New York City. Actually there are several reasons why an early Draper image could have been found in central Virginia.

John William Draper and his sister Dorothy Catherine--possibly another sister, Elizabeth Johnson Draper--and his assistant, William Henry Goode all arrived in New York City in September 1839 from south central Virginia. William Henry Goode's married sister lived north of Lynchburg. At Hampden Sydney College near Farmville (southeast of Lynchburg), John Draper left behind another sister, his wife's brother, and his wife, who on 26 December 1839 gave birth to their first daughter, Virginia. Draper was likely unable to return to Hampden Sydney during the short Christmas break and his wife was unable to travel to New York with the newborn child.

By late December in New York City Draper and Goode achieved what they considered to be successful and practical portraits. With the ability to easily take such portraits and separated from loved family far away in Virginia, Draper or Goode conceivably sent what may well have been the first such token through the mail. All exterior details of Plate M's construction and casing could conceivably date to ecember 1839.

3--It is surprising to find such an early portrait hand colored. Coloration would be rational if the image were destined for loved ones far distant and totally unfamiliar with photographic reality. Dorothy Catherine Draper was an artist and art teacher in England and Virginia. Into the 1850s she colored plates for John's scientific books. Her hand conceivably added the touches of color to this image.

4--Including the Frelinghuysen portrait (plate I) in the plate box, this quarter-plate is one of extremely few images in existence which depict subjects with eyes closed from light intensity (the only other eyes-closed image definitely known to the writer is the self portrait of Henry Fitz in the Smithsonian Institution). Plate M appears extremely early. It demonstrates a radically different technique from these other two known examples of images with closed eyes. It apparently fits all recorded characteristics of Dr. Draper's December 1839 method and product. Draper may well have been the only man in the world who could have produced such a technologically sophisticated product at such an early date. Certainly there are odds against all these factors being merely circumstantial.

5--When all of these facts are taken into account, the resemblance of the girl in the middle of plate M to Dorothy Catherine Draper becomes very intriguing.[134*]



On left are three detailed closeups of the quarter-plate daguerreotype Plate "M" (reversal of the original daguerreotype is corrected), (Writer's collection.). On right at top is a detail of the Dorothy Catherine Draper daguerreotype in an 1893 artotype copy (Kansas State Historical Society). On right at bottom is a detail of William Henry Goode (G. Brown Goode Virginia Cousins, Richmond, Virginia, J. W. Randolph & English, 1887.)
 There is only one known photograph (ca.1880s) of William Henry Goode.[135] No part of Goode's bearded face in the 1880s portrait appears to rule out the possibility that it could be the same face as the young man in the early quarter-plate daguerreotype. The strange puff of hair in the daguerreotype matches the way Goode's hair juts out in the 1880s photograph.

Speculatively, the other young woman in the quarter-plate could be Elizabeth Johnson Draper. No positively identified photograph of her has yet been located by the writer. This young woman could also be someone else entirely.



The intriguing possibilities inherent in this image invite further research. The truth may never be known without detailed forensic examination.




Click on image for a close up comparison of the eyes in both photos.
On left is detail of quarter-plate daguerreotype Plate "M" (reversal of the original daguerreotype is corrected), (Writer's collection.). On right is detail of the Dorothy Catherine Draper daguerreotype in an 1893 artotype copy (Kansas State Historical Society), detail.


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LIKENESS
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