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Untitled (Portrait of a Standing Man with a Steer)

Black-and-white photograph in a gold mat of a large dark cow in profile and a dark-skinned man to the right, standing near a body of water.
Public Domain

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  • Black-and-white photograph in a gold mat of a large dark cow in profile and a dark-skinned man to the right, standing near a body of water.

Date:

1849-56

Artist:

Montgomery Simons
American, 1817-1877

About this artwork

Daguerreotypes are one of the earliest forms of photography and most commonly employed to make portraits in the studio, so this study of a bull in a field is highly unusual. It is even more striking with the addition of careful hand coloring. Montgomery Simons, a noted Philadelphia daguerreotypist and the author of several photography manuals, had worked in Charleston, South Carolina, starting in 1849, and in Richmond, Virginia for about five years beginning in 1851, and probably made this image in one of those locations. The red bull is clearly the intended subject of the photograph—the image is framed and centered around his girth, and may even once have had an overmat that covered the figure behind him—but now we notice the African American laborer, possibly enslaved, holding him steady.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Photography and Media

Artist

Montgomery Simons

Title

Untitled (Portrait of a Standing Man with a Steer)

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1849–1856

Medium

Daguerreotype

Dimensions

Plate: 10.8 × 14 cm (4 1/4 × 5 1/2 in.); Case: 15.2 × 12.1 × 2.3 cm (6 × 4 13/16 × 15/16 in.); Open case: 15.2 × 24.2 × 1 cm (6 × 9 9/16 × 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

The W. Bruce and Delaney H. Lundberg Collection, purchased with funds provided by The Leonian Charitable Trust

Reference Number

2019.594

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/250215/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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