About This Artwork

Samuel J. Miller
American, 1822–1888

Frederick Douglass, 1847/52

Daguerreotype
14 x 10.6 cm (5-1/2 x 4-1/8 in., plate); 12.1 x 8.8 cm (4-3/4 x 3-1/2 in., mat opening); 15.2 x 12 x 1.4 cm (6 x 4-3/4 x 1/2 in., plate in closed case); 15.2 x 24 x 2 cm (6 x 9-1/2 x 3/4 in., plate in open case)
Major Acquisitions Centennial Endowment, 1996.433

One of the two forms that announced photography's invention in 1839, the daguerreotype offers a particularly detailed, sharp image because of its smooth silver-coated, light-sensitive plate. Samuel J. Miller was among the first to harness this crispness of forms to the business of portraiture. Based in northwestern Ohio, a center for Abolitionism in the decades prior to the Civil War, Miller had the great fortune to make a portrait of Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who had become a much-lauded speaker, writer, and agitator. This image stands out as one of the collection's finest examples of portraiture's ability to record its subject's intensity and power of character.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

AIC, "Majestic in his Wrath: The Frederick Douglass Daguerreotype," February 8–June 1, 2003, (Gallery 2).

Publication History

Rossen, Susan F. 1999. "Introduction." Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, vol. 24. no. 2. p.142.

Westerbeck, Colin L. 1999. “Frederick Douglass Chooses His Moment.” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, vol. 24, no. 2. pp. 144-161. figs. 1, 10.

Foner, Eric. 2001. “The Civil War and the Story of American Freedom.” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, vol. 27. no. 1. p. 18, pl. 4.

Davis, David Brion. 2006. "Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World." Oxford Unversity Press. n. pag.