Winter Portrait with Fur Coat and Gloves Quarter-plate daguerreotype (3.25 x 4.25 inches), hand-tinted. Circa 1853. [The coloration in the upper corners is the result of oxidation.] Formerly: The David Feigenbaum Collection of Southworth & Hawes. Private Collection.

There is a soul and feeling in the natural face… for the Almighty made it for the very purpose that you must see it, and you can see it. You must feel that the human face is handsomer than the finest artist ever painted it. I say it, I believe I am right. Excuse me for so much feeling.” –Albert S. Southworth, Comments at the National Photographic Association, 1873   “The Artist has in reality no control over the actual expression of the subject, which is the important part of a Photographic likeness. Having disciplined the features of the face until controllable, select an hour for sitting when you may be in your best mental as well as physical condition. Prearrange dress and drapery in your most tasteful and graceful manner, so that it shall be at least to your own satisfaction. A figure laced to suffocation, a foot aching under the pressure of a too diminutive shoe, or the hair drawn and twisted so tightly as almost to lift the wearer from the floor, thus imparting stiffness and awkwardness to expression even in repose, are but a few of the obstacles with which it will be useless for an Artist, however patient or earnest he may be, to counter.” –Albert S. Southworth, “Suggestions to LadiesWho Sit for Daguerreotypes,” Lady’s Almanac, 1855

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