SUBSEQUENT WORK OF DRAPER AND MORSE

In their 1840 gallery, Morse "supplied the aesthetic part, posed the sitters and all that," while Draper took the pictures. Draper remembered that their "primitive" operation was:
a grand success. It was during the summer vacation, and we had all the business we could possibly attend to at $5 a picture. I remember we took a picture, and a very good one, for Mr. Frelinghuysen, who was the candidate for Vice-President on the Henry Clay ticket. On dark days we used to teach the art to would-be daguerreotypers, as they were then called. From April until the fall, when I was obliged to resume my duties of teaching, we kept our gallery open, and then Professor Morse, quite devoted to it, opened a gallery on his own account on top of the Observer building in Nassau street.[99]

Between 22 September 1839 and April 1840, Draper used six arrangments of four differtent lens systems to take portraits. His progression through different lens systems has confused historians of photography. Many assumed that he was limited to a single approach, as were other early experimenters (Morse used only Daguerre's standard achromatic lens, Wolcott used the mirror camera, Cornelius used a 2-inch opera glass).


Three horizontal lines drawn across the facsimile image below
clarify Draper's review of four of his different portrait lens arrangements.



Facsimile of part of page 222 and page 223 of Draper’s seminal article:
"On the Process of Daguerreotype, and its Application to Taking Portraits from the Life,"
published in the London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine
and Journal of Science, 3rd ser., 17 (September 1840).


A summary of Draper's first four lens systems (used in six different arrangements)
as they relate to the portrait daguerreotypes in the plate box:

1st Lens system (date of use: 22-23 September 1839)
One biconvex nonachromatic lens 5 inch diameter, 7 inch focal length
-Used INDOORS to take 1/9th plate-box image A (see next page)

2nd Lens system (date of use: 24 September-7 October 1839)
One biconvex nonachromatic lens 4 inch diameter, 14 inch focal length
-Used OUTDOORS to take 1/9th plate-box image I
-Used INDOORS to take 1/9th plate-box image J

3rd Lens system (date of use: after 21 December 1839)
One nonachromatic "spectacle" lens 1 inch diameter, 14 inch focal length
-Used OUTDOORS to take quarter-plate image M

4th Lens system (date of use: by April 1840)
Two biconvex nonachromatic lenses 4 inch diameter, with combined 8 inch focal length
-Used OUTDOORS to take 1/9th plate-box image K
-Used INDOORS to take 1/9th plate-box image L &
the Dorothy Catherine Draper Daguerreotype



All of the lens systems that Draper developed between September 1839 and early spring 1840 were nonachromatic. Later in the spring he began to use French achromatic lenses (most likely once they were of large enough diameter for portraiture).[100]

Draper's spring 1840 apparatus, as evinced by Dorothy Catherine's daguerreotype, allowed him to take as advanced a portrait as anyone in the world. Draper's accomplishments in lens technology, however, did not conclude with the famous image of his sister. Rather, he continued to evolve the complexity of his lens system and undoubtedly expanded his capacity for capturing excellent portraits. Although he terminated commercial portrait work with Morse in fall 1840, Draper continued to use the daguerreotype process for various scientific experiments.[101]

Morse, without the security of a full-time university position, desperately needed income to justify his daguerreian investment.[102] He continued in the portrait business, erecting for this purpose a new gallery on the roof of his brother's newspaper building. Morse continued to use the complex lens system Draper had evolved. Anxious to shave every possible second off time required for portraiture, he must have continued to draw from Draper's optical expertise to achieve further perfection.

On 20 November 1840 Morse wrote a letter to one of his daguerreian students as he prepared to reopen a gallery. The letter reveals both the extent of Draper's and his success and the amazing sophistication of their fully evolved lens system. Morse detailed to his student a system containing five lens elements which allowed him to take an indoor portrait in only five seconds:
I have put together 5 lenses, 2 large achromatic 4 inches diameter, a plano convex, a double convex each of 4 inches, and a large double convex, 6 inches in diameter; these give me a focus of about four and a half inches.[103]
The advanced lens system Draper and Morse developed must have overcome many problems of lens aberration and depth of field. The five lens elements described by Morse possibly even approached the optical sophistication of the revolutionary Petzval lens. It was Draper's knowledge of optics that made such accomplishments possible. With his superior lens system, he had little need for accelerator chemicals, such as bromide, to accomplish fine portraiture.

The portrait in the Draper Collection at the Smithsonian Institution was likely taken by one of Draper and Morse's advanced lenses. The excellent depth of field in the portrait suggests that it was not taken with a primitive five-minute exposure in the fall of 1839; it was more likely taken in the fall of 1840 with a lens system similar to the five elements mentioned in Morse's November 1840 letter.

This unidentified portrait could provide a most important missing-link of provenance between the plate-box images and John Draper. Distinctive facial lines appear similar to later daguerreotypes of Draper's academic colleague and business partner Samuel F. B. Morse. This portrait may well depict Professor Morse in fall 1840. If so, it would form a visual link between the plate-box image J and known portraits of Morse.



On left is plate "J". On right is detail of the quarter-plate portrait daguerreotype in the Draper collection.
[Fig. 25 credits]

Plate J in the plate box is hypothesized to be an indoor 1839 portrait of Samuel Morse with his hair still gray. All known photographs show Morse with hair completely white. The historical record shows that in autumn 1839 Morse's hair was still gray.[104] About a year later, in February 1841 (within a few months of the probable date of the Smithsonian Institution portrait), Morse recorded that his hair was turning white ("the snows are on my temples").[105] The hair of the man in the portrait is turning white.



On left, detail of Plate "J" (c. early October 1839). At right, is detail of the quarter-plate portrait daguerreotype in the Draper collection at the Smithsonian Institution (c. November 1840).
[Fig. 25a credits]
 Although Morse's hair was gray in 1839, the tip of certain locks in plate J already show a touch of white. They appear to be the same locks that a year later have turned white in the Smithsonian Institution portrait.

The exposure for plate box image J would have lasted five to seven minutes and necessitated squinting into mirror reflected sunlight, face hard propped upon his hand. Even filtered through blue glass, such light would be painful to human eyes. The outdoor 1840 exposure in the Smithsonian Institution probably lasted ten seconds or less, and required only indirect sunlight. The subject held his unpropped face loose and natural, with little squinting.



On left is detail of Plate "J" (c. early October 1839), (reversal of the original daguerreotype corrected).
In middle is detail of the quarter-plate portrait daguerreotype in the Draper collection (c. November 1840), (reversal of the original daguerreotype corrected).
On right, is detail of Mathew Brady photo of Samuel Morse (c. 1870).
[Fig. 25b credits]



On top, detail of Plate "J" (c. early October 1839), (reversal of the original daguerreotype corrected). At bottom is detail of the quarter-plate portrait daguerreotype in the Draper collection (c. November 1840).
[Fig. 25c credits]
 Morse (who was financially distressed during this time period) may have worn the identical coat with cleft cuffs in each daguerreotype.

[To view other photos of Morse
and facial details that match the
individual recorded in this Draper collection daguerreotype,
follow this link.]


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14. Plate box image "A"


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