Portrait of Elizabeth Morris Canby [later, Mrs. Charles Grubb Rumford](1848-1936) with her parents, Samuel Canby (1811-1875) and Elizabeth Clifford Morris Canby (1813-1892)

Date1857-1859

Photographer Joseph Jeanes (active 1853-1867)

MediumAmbrotype in a velvet-lined, leather-covered case having brass fittings

DimensionsOverall (Closed case exterior): 3 11/16 x 3 1/4 x 7/8in. (9.4 x 8.3 x 2.2cm)

Credit LineGift of Beatrix T. Rumford

Object number2009-164

DescriptionA sixth-plate ambrotype portrait of a young girl, shown standing and flanked by an older man and woman, who are seated. The seated pair are shown to the waist, the background is plain. The ambrotype image is set in a velvet-lined, leather-covered case having brass fittings.
Label TextDaguerreotypy was the first photographic process practiced in America, but by 1857, the cheaper process of ambrotypy (recording photographic images on glass) had captured widespread public patronage. In 1857, Joseph Jeanes was the first to advertise this then-new skill (as well as melainotypy, now usually called tin-typy) in Wilmington, Delaware. Ambrotypy was short-lived, however. Whereas both daguerreotypes and ambrotypes were hard to view, fragile, and unique, photographic images on paper (available by 1859 in Wilmington) were not only cheap but durable and infinitely duplicatable.

MarkingsStamped into the velvet of the case liner is: "J. JEANE'S/121/MARKET ST/WILMINGTON DEL".

A typed label adhered to the velvet liner reads: "Elizabeth C Canby./Samuel Canby./Lilly M. Canby."

ProvenanceDescended in the family of the subject to CWF's donor. The exact line of descent is undocumented but may have been: from the two elder subjects to the younger; to her son, Samuel Canby Rumford (1876-1950); to his son, Lewis Rumford II (d. 1997); to his daughter, Beatrix Tyson Rumford, who was CWF's donor.