Brady, Mathew B. [photographer], and Charles Edwards Lester [editor]:

$17,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

THE GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS AMERICANS, CONTAINING THE PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES...OF THE MOST EMINENT CITIZENS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, SINCE THE DEATH OF WASHINGTON. FROM DAGUERREOTYPES BY ... First series (all published) of a famous and very rare work, including portraits of John James Audubon, President Zachary Taylor, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Henry Clay, from daguerreotypes by Mathew Brady, the most famous American photographer of the mid-19th century. This was the first book published in the United States in which daguerreotypes were used as the basis for creating lithographs. Conceived by photographer Matthew Brady, it was the most ambitious published series of American portraits prior to the Civil War.The series is made up of twelve portraits, all but one from Brady's daguerreotypes, accompanied by biographical descriptions. It was intended as a celebration of the United States during the first half of the 19th century through the "noble deeds" of its most famous citizens. "In this Gallery, therefore, will be grouped together those American citizens, who...have rendered the most signal services to the Nation, since the death of the Father of the Republic. As there is nothing sectional in the scope of this work, it will be comprehensive in its spirit; and it is hoped that it may...bind the Union still more firmly together" (from the prefatory "Salutation").By the mid-1840s, Mathew Brady was one of the busiest and most prominent daguerreotype artist

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