RARE Autograph and Book Auction October 17th
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/17/2024
Scarce Signed photo by Samuel F. Morse.
MORSE, SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE. 1791-1872. An original carte-de-visite photograph, showing a bearded Morse seated with his head resting on his hand, a watch fob chain on his lapel; by Bogardus, New York. Autographed verso in black fountain pen, "Saml. F.B. Morse." The card 4 1/8" x 2 7/16". Condition very good. Provenance: Private Collection; understood to have been acquired from Stanley Gibbons, UK/Guernsey.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of Morse code in 1837 and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.
Morse, considered one of the finest portrait painters of the Romantic Style in America, had studied art in Paris, where he met Louis Daguerre. Upon returning to the U.S., Morse set up his own photographic studio in New York. He was among the first in America to make portraits using the new daguerreotype method.
One of the first Americans to make daguerreotypes in the United States, Morse opened a studio in New York in 1840. There, he received many students who paid him to teach them the new daguerreotype process. More pupils came to him than to any other daguerreotypist at the time because of his prestige as president of the National Academy and an acquaintance of Daguerre himself. Some, including Mathew Brady, eventually became highly accomplished. Mathew Brady said of Morse that he was "the first successful introducer of this rare art in America."
With One of a Kind Collectibles LOA.
Samuel Morse Carte-de-Visite, Signed.
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