Figure 1.--This African American nanny poses with her little charge who looks to be about 4 years old. He wears a plid tunic with long pants. She must have been an important member of the family to be photographed with her young charge. She has a half smile playing on her lips. We are left to wonder wht she was thinking. The CDV portrait is undated, but the pose (more like a Daguerreotype pose) aand the boy's outfit suggests that it was a very early CDV, perhaps before or the very beginning of the Civil War. The photographer was George W. Evans, Philadelphia.

This African American nanny poses with her little charge who looks to be about 4 years old. He wears a plid tunic with long pants. She must have been an important member of the family to be photographed with her young charge. She has a half smile playing on her lips. We are left to wonder wht she was thinking. The CDV portrait is undated, but the pose (more like a Daguerreotype pose) aand the boy's outfit suggests that it was a very early CDV, perhaps before or the very beginning of the Civil War. The photographer was George W. Evans, Philadelphia. A reader points out, "This could also be a copy of an earlier dag." I think our reader is correct here. Not only does the pose and clohing look like the 1850s, but note the oval format. Most dags were done like that. Duplicates of dags were not possice, but itwas possible o make duplicates of CDVs and CDV copies of dags were possible. This is probably what happened here.

Created: 5:33 AM 5/10/2008
Last updated: 5:33 AM 5/10/2008