Cleveland Museum of Art
Husband and Wife
- Date
- c. 1860–65
- Medium
- Two ambrotypes with hand-tinting
- Culture
- America
- Department
- Photography
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 448838
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
You rarely see a smiling portrait from the mid-19th century. Having your photograph taken was a serious and rare endeavor, plus it was difficult to hold any animated expression long enough for the exposure times required by the early processes. Sitters were instructed to find ways to keep from moving, such as clasping their hands. The woman here has taken the photographers’ cautions to an extreme, resulting in a tense and unflattering portrait. In the early decades of photography, many people did not know how to pose for the camera.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- The Julius L. Greenfield Photography Acquisition Fund
- Provenance
- Estate of Robert and Joyce Feinman, Akron, OH | (Bluebird Liquidators, Fairlawn, OH), sold to Barbara Tannenbaum as agent for The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH | March 7, 2022-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Part of a LinkedCulture topic
19th Century Cased PhotographsThese objects are all early photographic formats from the mid-19th century, including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes, often hand-tinted and presented in cases.
48 objects from 2 institutions
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.