Anon. c.1840s Lot n° 16

Anon. c.1840s PORTRAIT OF AN INVENTOR c.1840s. Ninth plate Daguerreotype portrait, America(?)of a Gentlemen, smiling, possibly John Isaac Hawking (?) (1772-1855) holding what appears to be the Polygraph letter copying device, the worlds first autopen, famously championed by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) third President of the United States, who called the Polygraph "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804. The Daguerreotype is presented in fine condition, with a later fitted plain gilted oval Beard Patentee stamped mount, in maroon morroco Wharton style leather clamshell case, with a single lower hinge (case size, 80 x 60mm) Reference: Bedini, Silvio A. Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984. https://www.amphilsoc.org/item-detail/portable-polygraph-owned-thomas-jefferson https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/polygraph#:~:text=Jefferson%20first%20acquired%20the%20letter,for%20reducing%20and%20enlarging%20drawings. In 1841, less than two years after the introduction of the daguerreotype process in France, Richard Beard, a coal merchant and entrepreneur, had built and was operating England's first rooftop daguerreian portrait studio. John Goddard, a science lecturer at London's Polytechnic Institution, located downstairs from the studio on Regent Street in London, served as daguerreotypist, the person who actually operated the camera. The London newspaper The Times remarked favourably on the Beard studio's photographs: "The likenesses which we saw were admirable, and closely true to nature, beauties and deformities being exhibited alike." Beard's studio was a great financial success, and in 1841 he obtained the sole patent for daguerreotypes in England, Wales, and the British colonies. In 1850, however, like many operators of photography studios, he went bankrupt because of legal disputes over payment of the license fees required to practice daguerreotypy. Beard continued to sell photographs until 1857, when he passed the business on to his son. Source: The J Paul Getty Museum (http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=2065&page=1)