Charles R. Meade and his Daguerre Pictures

Abstract

In the 1891 and 1893 American Annual of Photography 1, 2, C. W. Canfield made a pioneering effort to trace authentic portraits of Daguerre. Previously sceptical that Charles R. Meade (Figure 1) could have taken the ‘five or six daguerreotypes’ attributed to him by Marcus Root3, Canfield had by 1893 assembled sufficient evidence to award Meade credit for five of the known views4. These five daguerreotypes of Daguerre, taken at a session granted to Meade in 1848, share an identifying feature: all show the inventor wearing a white bow-tie. The existence of daguerreotypes taken at other times, and not by Meade, was suggested by various representations5 which show Daguerre wearing a black stock or tie. Reflecting on the relative obscurity of black-tie daguerreotypes compared to Meade's6, Canfield was not able to name their makers. Since then, daguerreotypists believed responsible for three pictures of the black-tie type have been identified7. While these pictures demonstrate that Charles R. Meade was not alone in having daguerreotyped Daguerre, we contend that several of his contemporaries have received credit for pictures that really trace their origin to Meade's 1848, white-tie series.

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