Miniature case art - daguerreotype cases

Magazine Antiques, August, 1999 by Marion Rinhart

In the earliest day of photography in the United States daguerreo-typists followed the tradition of miniature painters by placing their silvery images in small rectangular cases.(1) It is possible that the first daguerreotype cases were jewelry cases because Mathew B. Brady (c. 1823-1896), a maker of jewelry cases, became an active daguerrotypist in 1843 and often provided cases used for portrait miniatures to the pioneer photographers.(2)

The first mention of a case containing a daguerreotype appeared in the New York Morning Herald on September 30, 1839, which described a daguerreotype of Saint Patti's Chapel in New York City as follows:

It is the first time that the rays of the sun were caught in this continent, and imprisoned in all their glory and beauty in a morocco case, with golden clasps.

Cases came to be made in the six sizes of the standard daguerreotype plates, the most popular by far being the "sixth" plate, which measures 2 3/4 by 3 1/4 inches. The hinged cases were made of wood covered front and back with paper-thin sheets of leather that had been embossed with all manner of decorative patterns by means of brass dies mounted in a heavy screw press [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. V OMITTED].(3) Inside the case the portrait was on the right, framed in a shaped gilded mat, while the left side was padded with silk or velvet, sometimes stamped with the name and address of the photographer [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. XII OMITTED]. Other containers for daguerreotype portraits available from the early 1840s were lockets, rings, bracelets, and sometimes even the heads of canes.

During the 1840s the case covers were often decorated with motifs from nature: gardens, birds, and fruits such as strawberries and grapes. Flowers were extremely popular and included lilies, roses, tulips, and morning glories. Other designs were gem motifs, ovals, hexagons and octagons, and artistic scrolls [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. IV OMITTED].(4)

Beginning in the late 1840s more elaborate cases made an appearance. Some were covered with red, blue, or green velvet [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. XIII OMITTED]. Many were made of jet-black papier-mache inlaid with designs in mother-of-pearl or bearing hand-painted landscapes, sometimes with gilded highlights [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. III OMITTED].(5) Leather-covered cases were also sometimes embossed with scroll or leaf designs highlighted in gold or silver [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. VI OMITTED].

Daguerreotype studios had glass display cabinets full of cases from which their customers could choose. Also available were rosewood frames of different sizes in which to mount larger daguerreotypes for display on the wall.

The first molded thermoplastic case was introduced in the United States in 1853, and in October 1854 the daguerreotypist Samuel Peck of New Haven, Connecticut, who found a method of strengthening the composition, patented the first thermoplastic case [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. XI OMITTED].(6) The basic components of the material were sawdust ground as fine as flour, shellac, and color. When mixed, heated, and rolled the soft mixture could be pressed into dies in a screw press to make the ornamental case. Almost immediately others obtained patents for similar cases, which were known as union cases and were made in quantity.

Designs for the thermoplastic cases were drawn from nature, history, religion, patriotism, architecture, and classical art. Some cases even depicted famous paintings, and lithographs and mezzotints often provided the die makers with ideas. One photographic journal noted in 1858:

The history of the U.S. is being impressed on the rising generation and it is furbishing up the memories of sober citizens from the covers of daguerreotype cases.(7)

In addition to leather, papier-mache, and thermoplastic cases, many inexpensive ones were covered simply with cloth or paper, especially after tintypes and photographs printed from glass-plate negatives became popular. Before and during the Civil War many case designs of all materials began to assume a nationalistic flavor and incorporated wartime symbols such as cannons, flags, and gunboats.

During the 1860s the photograph album in which paper prints could be mounted cut sharply into the production of miniature cases, and by the 1870s it was rare to find a cased photograph. Although popular for less than half a century, the miniature case offers a rich heritage of designs, reflecting the changing taste of the American public.

1 Graham Reynolds, English Portrait Miniatures (A. and C. Black, London, 1952), pp. 164-165.

2 Letter from Brady dated June 1843 in which he stated that he was making cases for jewelry and often supplied them to daguerreotypists. The letter is in the George Eastman House/International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York, Alden Scott Boyer Collection.

3 Floyd and Marion Rinhart, American Daguerreian Art (Clarkson N. Potter, New York, 1967), p. 88. See also Floyd and Marion Rinhart, American Miniature Case Art (A. S. Barnes and Company, South Brimswick, New Jersey, 1969), pp. 47-48. The only comprehensive information about embossing I could find is in a pamphlet by Patrick J. Lawlor, Embossing (Malden, Massachusetts, 1891; reissued by Inland Printer, Chicago, 1902 and 1908).