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Ambrotype
- Museum / Archive
- Aylmer-Malahide Museum and Archives
- Date Range From
- 1853
- Date Range To
- 1869
- Museum / Archive
- Aylmer-Malahide Museum and Archives
- Description
- Ambrotype of a baby in a case. The giftform identifies the baby as Junius Martin. This could be an example of postmortem photography as Junius Martin was born in 1854 in Aylmer and died two years later on August 13, 1856. He is buried in the Burdick Cemetery near Summers Corners. The cushioned insert that would have been inside of the inside cover of the case is missing. The image of the baby is protected under glass. The baby is under a checkered blanket. Around the image is an ornate oval gold metal frame. The outside of the case has a design on the front and back cover.
Ambrotypes were popular from 1854 until the mid-1860s
In 1851 London sculptor Frederick Scott Archer announced his new form of photography, the wet collodion processes. This combined the most successful of daguerreotype and calotype negative methods, but it was more simple and less expensive, allowing it to be commercially viable. This method was extremely popular and became the foundation for photography for the following 140 years. In this method, a glass plate was coated with the wet collodion solution that contained light-sensitive silver salts and was exposed while the plate was still wet. Photographs had to be taken within 15 minutes of coating the plate so a portable dark room was required. The exposure time was less than daguerreotypes and calotypes, making outdoor photography easier. A sharp glass negative image was created that captured details. Positive copies could be made from the glass negative, usually albumen prints on paper. The images were sharper than those made by the calotype process and are less likely to fade.
Ambrotypes, or wet collodion positives, were formed by painting the back of the glass negative image with black paint, or by placing a piece of black card there. The image was often put in a protective case, similar to that of a daguerreotype. In 1854 James Ambrose Cutting took out several patents relating to the process. He is thought to be responsible for coining the term ‘ambrotype.’
Ambrotypes were much less expensive to produce than daguerreotypes and they could be viewed from every angle as they did not have the mirror-like metallic surface that could often make daguerreotypes difficult to view. While the daguerreotype exposure time took several minutes, the wet collodion process for ambrotypes drastically reduced the exposure time, taking from a few seconds to a minute. The shortened exposure time and the low price helped increase their popularity of ambrotypes over daguerreotypes. By the late 1850s the ambrotype was more popular than the daguerreotype. By the mid-1860s the ambrotype itself was being replaced by the tintype and paper print.
- Category
- Communication Artifacts
- Sub-category
- Documentary Artifact
- Subject of Image
- Baby
- Accession Number
- 1986-029-0062
- Date Range From
- 1853
- Date Range To
- 1869
- Length
- 8.3
- Width
- 2
- Height
- 9.5
- Units
- cm
- Dimension Remarks
- Dimensions are of the case when it is closed. When the case is open it is 16.5 in length.
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