BEHIND THE SCENES
My new series about the stories behind popular pictures, portraits, and moments of our Presidents
Today’s subject:
The John Quincy Adams 🇺🇸 daguerreotype
Enjoy the thread below ⬇️!
#POTUS
@JQASociety
In the mid-1830s Louis Daguerre and inventor Joseph-Nicephore Niépce developed a method to permanently capture images onto chemically treated plates (no negatives)
Níepce died but Daguerre kept working and perfected the process called “daguerreotype” in the late 1830s
#POTUS 📷
Daguerre negotiated the rights to this innovative process with the French government in exchange for lifetime pensions for him and Níepce’s son. The French then gifted the process to the world
That’s it in a nutshell 😜
All caught up?
Let’s go to John Quincy Adams 🇺🇸
#POTUS
But before we get to John Quincy Adams 🇺🇸 we need to acknowledge that William Henry Harrison 🇺🇸 was actually the first President to be photographed!
A daguerreotype of him from Election Day 1841 has been lost to history (and would be 2 years older than the JQA picture)
#POTUS
Ok - time for the John Quincy Adams 🇺🇸 part of the story!
According a March 1843 entry in John Quincy Adams’ diary, the session in the office of the photographer Philip Haas went like this:
#POTUS ✍️📸
Here, in John Quincy Adams’ 🇺🇸 diary, he discusses the daguerreotype process from the perspective of the subject:
#POTUS ✍️📸
John Quincy Adams’ 🇺🇸 photo session with Philip Haas produced three daguerreotypes - with only one surviving: the one we know today
JQA gifted that daguerreotype to Rep. Horace Everett (VT) whose descendant found it & cosigned it to @Sothebys
See the picture back ⬇️
#POTUS
The National Portrait Gallery purchased the portrait for $360,500 at the Sotheby’s photographs auction held Oct. 5, 2017, in New York City.
#POTUS 🇺🇸
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