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Hand-Colored Photograph of Unknown Man by Matthew Brady

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Western Americana Start Price:1,000.00 USD Estimated At:2,000.00 - 4,000.00 USD
Hand-Colored Photograph of Unknown Man by Matthew Brady
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Hand colored portrait of an unknown man (matted w/ oval window. 17.5" H x 14" W) by Mathew Brady (c.1823-1896). Brady is often referred to as the father of photojournalism and is most well known for his documentation of the Civil War. Mathew Brady was the first to undertake the photographic documentation of the American Civil War. Brady was almost killed at Bull Run, VA. He got lost for three days and eventually wound up in Washington D.C., nearly dead from starvation. His photographs, and those he commissioned, had a tremendous impact on society at the time of the war, and continue to do so today. He and his employees photographed thousands of images including battlefields, camp life, and portraits of some of the most famous citizens of his time including Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. Mathew Brady lived the last few months of his life in a rooming house, all alone, sick, and destitute. He was left penniless and unappreciated even though he devoted his whole life to preserving and perpetuating the history of his country. Towards the end of Brady's life he once said about the photographs he took: "No one will ever know what they cost me; some of them almost cost me my life."

Brady was born in Warren County, New York in the early 1820’s to Irish immigrants, Andrew and Julia Brady. Little is known about his early life, but historians believe that during a trip to the Albany area, in search of a cure for an eye inflammation, he met portrait painter William Page. It is also believed that through William Page, Brady met Samuel F.B. Morse. Morse, a professor of art, painting, and design at New York University and the inventor of the telegraph likely tutored Brady in the newly developed technology of daguerreotypy, the process of creating a mirror image on a silver-surfaced copper plate. Brady opened a studio in Washington DC and began making daguerreotypes of prominent politicians such as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Zachary Taylor, and Millard Fillmore. In 1850 he published "The Gallery of Illustrious Americans," which sold for $15, equivalent to about $400 today.

Burger Collection

Date: c.1850's
City:
State: Washington D. C.
ID: 22041