Portrait of a Young Sailor

about 1848

Medium

Daguerreotype, hand-colored

Dimensions

9 × 6.5 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-531076

> One of the challenges of early portrait photography was keeping the sitters perfectly still for exposure times of thirty seconds or more. Painful headclamps and other mechanical devices were employed to this end. The boy in this daguerreotype supports himself by resting his hand on a barrel as though he has been pictured on the job. However, the base of a posing stand can also be seen between his legs. > > Wearing fresh, new clothes large enough to grow into during his first sea voyage—a trip that could last several years—this young mariner probably had his photograph made in a daguerreotype studio at his home port as a remembrance for his family. He proudly wears a symbol of his profession, the broad straw hat covered with a tar-soaked canvas that sailors wore when on shore leave. It is likely that the youth had just signed on to serve as a cabin boy. Adapted from getty.edu, Interpretive Content Department, 2009; and Weston Naef, *The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Photographs Collection* (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), 35-36. © 1995 The J. Paul Getty Museum.