Daguerreotype portrait of a gentleman. Sydney, c.1855.

Sixth-plate daguerreotype with applied colour, 70 x 58 mm (sight); in a square brass mat with arch-top window; housed in a full leather case with the gilt-stamped crest of the photographers ‘FREEMAN BROTHERS / SYDNEY’ to verso, and with two working brass clasps; the daguerreotype is in excellent condition (a few specks of dust underneath the glass, and a faint diagonal scratch apparently made in the photographic studio, are not nearly as noticeable to the naked eye); the case is in very fine condition.

This subtly tinted half-length portrait of an unidentified gentleman with a chin curtain beard (or “Shenandoah”), wearing a a dark cravat and frock coat, is a rare example of a daguerreotype by the Sydney studio of William G. W. Freeman and James Freeman. The arch-top mat is very similar to that used in a Freeman Brothers half-plate daguerreotype of a mother and her children held in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria (Accession number 2000.192), which is dated to 1855-56.