John Quincy Adam's March 1843 Daguerreotype

choi

Jennifer Schuessler, Found: The Oldest US Presidential Photo; An original daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams will be auctioned off at Sotheby's.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/ ... thebys-auction.html
(a March 1843 photo of JQA)

Excerpt in the window of print: Given as a gift to a Congressman whose descendants lost track of its significance.

Note:
(a)
(i) John Quincy Adams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quincy_Adams
(1767 – 1848; president 1825 – 1829; born in what is now City of Quincy US House of Representatives 1843 – 1848)
(ii) Quincy, Massachusetts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quincy,_Massachusetts
("Quincy is the birthplace of two US presidents — John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams — as well as John Hancock * * * was named after Colonel John Quincy, maternal grandfather of Abigail Adams and after whom John Quincy Adams was also named;"  Quincy shares borders with Boston to the north)
(iii) The English surname Quincy (of Norman origin) was name of "places in France deriving their names from the Gallo-Roman personal name Quintus, meaning 'fifth(-born)' + the locative suffix -acum."

(b)
(i) daguerreotype
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype
(Invented by [Frenchman] Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and introduced worldwide in 1839; Daguerre did not give a clear account of his method of discovery [such as why iodide, mercury] )
(ii) Early Photography: Making Daguerreotypes. Khan Academy, undated (length 5:43).
https://www.khanacademy.org/huma ... aphy-daguerreotypes

(c) "In August 1843, the former president, then 76, sat for a photographer during a visit to upstate New York and pronounced the results 'all hideous.' Unfortunately for him [because the photo is ugly], a daguerreotype from that sitting surfaced at an antiques shop in 1970, priced at 50 cents, and currently sits in the National Portrait Gallery, where it laid claim to being the oldest surviving original photograph of an American president."
(i) the August 1843 daguerreotype:
John Quincy Adams. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, undated.
https://www.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.70.78
(ii) National Portrait Gallery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Portrait_Gallery_(United_States)
("[O]pened to the public in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution")
(iii) Megan Garber, The Oldest Known Photographs of a US President. The Atlantic, Feb 5, 2013
https://www.theatlantic.com/tech ... s-president/272872/

included a photo of
Daguerreotype of Adams Bought for 50 Cents. Associated Press, Nov 29, 1970.

(d) "That honor [the earliest photographic image of an American president], if few others, belongs to William Henry Harrison, who had his likeness taken in 1841, around the time of his inauguration [held on Mar 4, 1841; he died on Apr 4, that year]. He died of an uncertain illness 32 days into his term, and the original daguerreotype is not known to survive, though the Metropolitan Museum of Art owns a copy"

(e) "The same penetrating gaze, heavily whiskered jaw [of JQA] and elegant parlor backdrop are visible in a famous image also owned by the Met."
(i) Click the "image," which The Met says simply "Date: ca. 1850." (He died in 1848.)
(ii) The following article explained why "1850," which was wrong , however, in identifying the year the original was made as 1843 -- because JQA's diary said he went to a studio in March 1843, but now we know the newly discovered photo was taken that month.  

Beaumont Newhall, A Daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams by Philip Haas. Metropolitan Museum Journal (an annual publication), vol 12, pages 151-154 (1977)
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/met ... m_journal_v_12_1977
("Recent evidence indicates that one of the most striking and historically important daguerreotypes in the collection, a portrait of John Quincy Adams (Figure I), was taken by Philip Haas in Washington, DC, in 1843. * * * The daguerreotype, a half-plate, is not dated * * * As was the custom, the silver-coated plate bears, in the upper right corner, the hallmark of the manufacturer * * * [whose name] was changed to Scovill Manufacturing Company in I850 * * * There is yet another reason to identify the Metropolitan's plate as a copy: the image is not reversed in respect to right and left. An original daguerreotype is a mirror image, unless an optical device is fitted over the lens -- either a plane mirror at 45o to the axis of the lens or a 90o prism. Most sitters accepted the reversed image: after all, we know ourselves by what we see in a looking glass. Portraits of sitters wearing coats conveniently betray the mirror image: it is the custom for tailors to cut a man's coat so that it buttons from right to left. Adams's coat is thus shown in the Metropolitan's daguerreotype. * * * [Director of National Portrait Gallery Marvin] Sadik clinches the evidence by stating that Adams noted in his diary that he sat for his portrait in March, 1843, in [photographer Philip] Haas's gallery")

* double-breasted
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-breasted
("fasten left lapel over right lapel as usual for men's jackets")

choi

(f) "A patchwork of labels on the back of the newly discovered daguerreotype[:] * * * There's a piece of brown paper, apparently clipped from an envelope, with 'JQ Adams' in the return address space, in what appears to be the former president's handwriting. 'He [JQA] had a distinctive way of making his H's,' Ms [Emily] Bierman[, the head of Sotheby's photographs department,]  said."
(i) "with 'JQ Adams' in the return address space"
(A) First, see the real envelopes mailed by JQA.

Search images.google.com with (envelope "John quincy adams"). Usually he put his name (without address) in the upper right corner of envelope. Name of the addressee was in the middle of envelope, with city but not necessarily street name (definitely no street number).
(B) Free Frank Envelope. US House of Representatives, undated
http://history.house.gov/Collection/Detail/15032404913
(an "envelope signed by Rep Thaddeus Stevens" on Dec 21, 1860 (accession No 2004.078.002b; addressee's city: York); at the bottom is a preview of "John Quincy Adams Free Frank")

* franking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franking
(section 2 History of the "Franking Privilege: "The phrase franking is derived from the Latin word 'francus' meaning free. Another use of that term is speaking 'frankly,' ie 'freely' ")
(C) postage stamps and postal history of the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po ... f_the_United_States

Quote: "Before the introduction of stamps, it was the recipient of mail—not the sender—who generally paid the cost of postage * * * Stampless letters, paid for by the receiver, and private postal systems, were gradually phased out after the introduction of adhesive postage stamps, first issued by the U.S. government post office July 1, 1847, in the denominations of five and ten cents, with the use of stamps made mandatory in 1855. * * * The introduction of postage stamps in the UK in May 1840
(D) in US:
Melissa, How to Post a Letter, 19th Century Style. Parks Library Preservation, at Iowa State University Library, Feb 14, 2011
https://parkslibrarypreservation ... 19th-century-style/
(photo caption: "Letter from Professor B Lilliman (New Haven, CT) to Joseph B Felt, Esq (Boston, MA). Dated March 17, 1840. ISU Library Special Collections, American Statistical Association collection"
(E) in UK:
Catherine J Golden (author was an American professor), The Victorian Revolution in Letter Writing. The Victorian Web, July 22, 2010.
www.victorianweb.org/technology/letters/intro.html

Click the icon labeled "A letter cover."

(ii) "JQ Adams" does not have an "h," but "John Quincy Adams" does have one.

Mar 1, 1843. The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection. By Massachusetts Historical Society.
www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/ ... y=entry&start=0