Missing Front Portion of Union Case
Ca 1850s
3 1/8" x 3 5/8"
Daguerreotypes were a very early form of photography, a photographer would use a camera to expose light on a silver-plated plate of copper, then develop the image using a mercury vapor. Widely used in the 1840s and 1850s, it was soon replaced by the ambrotype. Because the silver takes on a mirror-like appearance, the subject can be viewed as either a positive or negative image depending on the angle viewed.