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1136

Mills-Easton Family Daguerreotype, and Easton Portraits, 1857 [166032]

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:1,000.00 USD Estimated At:2,000.00 - 20,000.00 USD
Mills-Easton Family Daguerreotype, and Easton Portraits, 1857 [166032]
SOLD
2,200.00USD+ (440.00) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2023 Apr 29 @ 16:53UTC-7 : PDT/MST
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An original family collection of four photographs in original hard shell cases, Three daguerreotypes and one ambrotype, all from 1857.

Photo Collection of the Darius O. Mills Family, circa late 1857, and Portraiture of Addie Mills Easton

This lot consists of three original hard shell cased daguerreotype images of members of the D.O. Mills family:

The Mills and Easton Families, Half Plate Daguerreotype.

Updated Message About This Photo from Fred Holabird:

"The Easton/Mills family photograph is a wonderful treasure trove of an historical record of a very important family in the late 1850s of San Francisco. The photograph shows family members of the Mills and Easton families in 1857 taken by well-known San Francisco photographic artist R.H. Vance. All agree it may be the only original period and earliest known photograph of the family still in existence.

The Mills family’s direct ties to early and sustaining California banking interests (D. O. Mills et al) underlie the importance of the photograph. The photo is thought to show all of the Mills brothers and the young Easton couple, survivors of the famous “Ship of Gold” tragedy in the fall of 1857, in which hundreds of people died, with millions of dollars in gold lost at sea until the Columbus Discovery Group found the ship in 7200 feet of water in 1988.

Identification of the various family members took place using pre-1900 published sketches of family members (such as Jane Mills) in conjunction with one important descendant of the Easton family. Of particular interest is an unknown factor – when did D. O. Mills lose his hair?

Since that time, we have heard from two other reported descendants of the Mills/Easton families who have differing thoughts on “who is who” in the family photograph.

It may be nigh impossible to prove factually just who is who, except for the Eastons, Jane Mills and perhaps one or two of the brothers. Even as I write this, there is disagreement on Jane Mills, though the pre-1900 sketches of her are very clearly the person we identified. With this in mind, I invite all to visit their own family photographic archive. It is very easy for a family member to look at, in example, a CDV of a person in the 1860s, and state in 2020 (160 years later) that this person was John Doe, the great-great grandfather, when that person was really just guessing on the identity. In reality, it might have been John Doe’s brother. It becomes “fact” when our forebears wrote on the back of the old photo the name in pencil. In the case of my own family, we sat down with our grandmother who tried to identify the photos in an 1860s album. Two years later, she changed her mind on the identities of some. Memories fade. Outside corroborative information disappears over time, so all we are left with is a best guess.

--Fred Holabird"

Original half plate (4 x 5") daguerreotype of the D.O. Mills family in the original hard shell, hinged, pressed pattern leather case with gilt borders in excellent condition. The men, left to right: Edgar Mills, younger brother of D.O. Mills and his banking partner for years, with his wife Margaret McIver Swift Mills seated in front of him (as suggested by a living member of the family today). It is important to note that Edgar is standing immediately next to D.O. Mills, and was his "right hand man"; D.O. Mills, a young banker, business scholar and family patriarch in California; Ansel Easton, and his wife Addie, who sits directly in front of him, holding hands with Jane Mills, Darius Mills' wife. Second from right does not appear to be of the same family, and may be his new, or about to be, partner Henry Miller. The man on the far right may be Niles Mills, a brother of D.O. Mills, of whom little has been written. The two women in the front row at left are thought to be the wives of two of the other brothers, Margaret Mills (wife of Edgar) and Helen Mills, wife of Niles (as suggested by a living family member). Each of the figures has pink coloring added to facial features and hands of the women. There is no indication of seasonality, such as Christmas.

The photo appears to be a family portrait taken upon the return of Ansel and Addie to California after the sinking of the S.S. Central America, and the newly wedded couple's separation at sea, not knowing if each other survived. Jane Mills holding the hand of Addie is particularly sweet and strongly familial, as if saying "thank God she is alive!" There is no mention of the family gathering in the California press through the end of 1858.

The Mills family photograph, and that of the following portraiture in daguerreotype format, are thought to have been made by prominent San Francisco photographer Robert H. Vance at his San Francisco gallery in late 1857. The reason for this thought is that the ambrotype of Addie Easton was definitely taken by Vance at about the same time, and it makes sense she and the family would use a photographer known to them, who also happened to be the most famous, award winning and prolific photographer in California during the 1850s.

Addie Easton and Sister-in-Law, Two Third Plate Daguerreotypes in Hard Shell Case
Two daguerreotypes taken at different times. The image at the left was taken at the very same time as the family photo discussed above, with Addie Easton holding hands with one of her sisters-in-law, possible Helen Mills. They are in the very same clothing as the above family photo, thus taken the same day. The image on the right appears to be Addie Easton herself, though taken art a different time, as she is wearing different clothing, and the hair is not as finely cultured as in the family group photograph. The image of the two women at left have the rose, hand-colored facial cheeks and hands, as in the family photo. The image at the right has been wiped above and around the head, slightly damaging the original daguerreotype. Each photo has a glass covering. Hard shell case, 4 x 4-7/8".

Addie Easton, Third Plate Ambrotype Portrait by R.H. Vance in Leather Hard Shell Case
Third plate original daguerreotype portrait by R. H. Vance of San Francisco of Addie Easton. No coloration of the facial features. Addie is wearing an interesting brooch, which under microscopy appears to be a brooch containing small nuggets of placer gold. Leather exterior hard shell case, 4 x 4-7/8". Gilt frame stamped "R.H. Vance, San Francisco" in lower left corner, "Cutting's Patent, July 4 & 11, 1854" in lower right corner.

The notation of Vance is important. It strongly indicates that Vance was the photographer for all of the views here of the Mills family. Vance (1825-1876) got his start in the photography business about 1845 on the East Coast, probably in Maine or New Hampshire. Vance may have watched other New England businessmen families such as Aspinwall and Howland families, as they expanded their businesses to South America, cashing in on foreign sourced trade. The most important port at the time was Valparaiso, and it was there that a young Vance made his move. For about five years, Vance established a number of different galleries in South America, and took many landscape photographs inclusive of mining regions. As news of the California Gold Rush grew, Vance decided to move his main operation to San Francisco. His early views of San Francisco are very well known, particularly because of how he publicized his business and used important exhibitions to display hundreds of different images of his work. But today, few exist. Vance began experimenting with soft colors as early as the 1840s. He continued this practice in California and was using James H. Wise in San Francisco as his colorist, who is probably the man that personally colored these photographs of the Mills family in Vance's San Francisco studio.

Vance began experimenting with a new form of photography, the ambrotype in about 1855. He sought, and obtained, the exclusive rights for Cutting's patent ambrotype process in California in 1856. By mid-1857, a number of photographers tried the "run-around" of Vance's exclusivity, in the same manner as people ignoring Sutter's and Fremont's land ownership in the rich California gold regions.

A number of the frames recovered from the S.S. Central America site were stamped with Vance's name, indicative of his prominence in California during the Gold Rush. Much more can be read in the very fine work by Peter Palmquist, "Pioneer Photographers of the Far West, 1840-1865," Stanford Press, 2000, pp559-566.


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