Jabez Hogg Daguerreotype

Abstract

Abstract The study here illustrated was sold to a private collector in Germany at Christie's, South Kensington on 10th March 1977 for £5800. It appears to be the first representation of a studio photographer at work. It is quarter-plate size, in a Wharton case, and depicts Jabez Hogg taking a portrait in Richard Beard's studio. Hogg was one of the earliest British experimenters with the daguerreotype, and published A Practical Manual of Photography in 1843, with a woodcut illustration of the present daguerreotype. The same woodcut was published in The Illustrated London News on 19th August 1843, illustrating a satirical poem called ‘Lines Written on Seeing a Daguerreotype Portrait of a Lady’, with a footnote: ‘Our engraving represents the photographic process of Mr Beard's establishment, Parliament Street, Westminster.’ Richard Beard's studio at 34 Parliament Street was opened on 29th March 1842, and one can therefore safely date this photograph within a span of about one year. A number of Hogg family pho...