Nursemaid and Child
Unattributed
[Nursemaid with her charge]
Sixth-plate ambrotype,
hand-tinted, ca. 1855
Prints & Photographs Division
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Although household slaves held higher status than
field hands, this partial portrait of a nursemaid reveals that
higher status was relative. The photographer chose to obscure
the nursemaid's face, directing our attention to the white child
as the main subject of this ambrotype--heightening the infant's
prominence by hand-coloring the face and dress. By the late-1850s,
the glass ambrotype had replaced the silver-coated copper plate
of the daguerreotype for popular photographic portraiture, because
it was less expensive and faster to produce.
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