Rodeo Tintype

This ad from the December 1875 issue of Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin I believe represents the “last gasp” of arguably the greatest American lens maker of all time. This is the E & HT Anthony Company, the largest photographic supplier in the country, attempting to sell the last of their remaining stock of CC Harrison lenses.

CC Harrison died in 1864. It is likely that manufacture of his lenses continued to 1866 but production certainly ceased around this time. CC Harrison had been the primary supplier of lenses for E & HT Anthony & Company (they still held considerable CC Harrison stock which they would continue to sell for years to come). In 1866, the CC Harrison Company was sold to the American Optical Company (along with the John Stock Camera Company which supplied wood camera boxes to Anthony). American Optical was subsequently sold just a year later to the Scovill Manufacturing Company. Alarmed by the sale of his lens supplier and camera builder to his competitor, Edward Anthony made new plans. It was at this time that Anthony became the sole agent for Dallmeyer lenses in the United States and the rest, as they say, is history.

Is your Dallmeyer 3B Patent Portrait lens engraved with serial number 15728? If so, your lens was once owned by Mathew Brady. I have no idea if this lens is in a museum, a private collection, or if it is mounted to your camera. What I do know is that it was on an inventory of Brady’s Washington D.C. studio equipment when he declared bankruptcy in 1873. Dallmeyer records show that the manufacture of this lens began on January 16, 1869 and it left the factory on February 19, 1869. It was then sold to E. & H.T. Anthony & Co. on February 15, 1870(?). Presumably it was sold to Brady later in 1870 and then to persons unknown in 1873. Although the bankruptcy sale of Brady’s equipment from his New York and Washington D.C. studios didn’t raise as much money as hoped, Brady was able to emerge from bankruptcy in 1874 and reopen his Washington D.C. studio in 1875.

The CC Harrison whole plate lens on the bankruptcy inventory (serial number 1195 manufactured in about 1851) was sold with one of Brady’s cameras in 2011 (possibly the camera on the inventory but that is unclear).

1875 portrait of Mathew Brady from the Library of Congress. Bankruptcy Inventory imaged by Heritage Auctions. JH Dallmeyer records are from the Brent Archive.

“Blue-tinted skylights” in a Daguerreotype studio was a new one for me (and I want to know more!) but for anyone interested in a very readable journey through the history of 19th and early 20th century photography and it’s cavalcade of characters (if you’ve never heard of Nadar then this book is worthy for that introduction alone) you won’t be able to put this one down. Although I might quibble with some of the wording in the descriptions of the processes (e.g., “a solution of egg whites, beaten with salt” will read like table salt to most in a book like this), has done an admirable job of making an arguably niche subject very entertaining. And the next time I shoot a portrait, “prunes” it is!

I made a post about my great uncle William Langley awhile back but my cousin sent me this photo a few days ago and I thought I would post it for all of the gearheads out there. Me and some others I know can probably match him for the sheer number of cameras and lenses but the lighting is a different matter. This photo was taken probably late 50’s, maybe early 60’s. The only camera him and I have in common is the Deardorff he is leaning on.