Collect24The Global Art Registry
Unknown, [Portrait of a Black Man]
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles · Digital image courtesy of Getty's Open Content ProgramView original →
Unknown

[Portrait of a Black Man]

about 1856

Current Collection

J. Paul Getty Museum

Los Angeles, United States

Medium
Daguerreotype
Dimensions
6.4 × 5.2 cm
Status
In Museum Collection
Collect24 Art ID
C24-511292

A proud young man sits for his daguerreotype portrait, with his right hand confidently clutching the label of his jacket. He is well dressed for the occasion in a light-colored top hat and bow tie. He gazes intently outward, concentrating on the act of being recorded by the camera, possibly for the first time. He is unidentified, but his dress and bearing, coupled with the early date of the photograph--some seven years before emancipation came for African Americans at the end of the Civil War--suggest that he was a free man of color.

Provenance

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Registry history

  • about 1856 — Recorded in the collection of J. Paul Getty Museum — photographs

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