Post-mortem ambrotype: standing father and seated mother cradling their dead child. Canada(?), circa 1860.

A$950 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Sixth-plate ambrotype (wet collodion positive) with subtle hand tinting, 70 x 80 mm (sight); housed in an elliptical brass mount under cover glass, in a half leather case with embossed design featuring laurel wreath, flowers and both a Union Jack and French tricolour suggesting a possible Canadian origin; the ambrotype is in very good condition. The ambrotype from the Greek ambrotos, immortal is created using the wet plate collodion process developed by the English inventor Frederick Scott Archer, which came into vogue in Europe and North America from around 1854 as a cheaper alternative to the daguerreotype. A glass plate covered with a thin layer of collodion, then dipped in a silver nitrate solution, is exposed to the subject while still wet, then developed and fixed. When the reverse of this negative image is coated with a dark emulsion such as varnish or paint, the resulting image appears as a positive. The process requires the expertise and experience of a professional photographer. Every ambrotype is a unique image that can only be duplicated by copying with another camera.

• Binding: Hardcover

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