![[A White Man with His Two Daughters and a Black Nurse]](https://media.getty.edu/iiif/image/6b45a46a-69fb-4448-8822-83bc9054b4d0/full/808,/0/default.jpg)
Getty Museum
[A White Man with His Two Daughters and a Black Nurse]
Creator
Thomas Martin EasterlyAmerican Daguerreotypist · 1809–1882
All works by this person →A sometime calligrapher and writing teacher, Vermont-born Thomas Easterly learned the daguerreotype process in New York between 1841 and 1844, possibly from Charles and Richard Meade. In 1844 Easterly sailed from New York City to New Orleans, where he made photographs before returning to Vermont the following year. He did not remain for long: by October, he had entered into a daguerreotype studio
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1850
- Medium
- Hand-colored daguerreotype
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
This somber image is as important for what it leaves out as for what it shows. The conspicuous absence of the man's wife and the children's mother and the inclusion of the elderly mammy suggest the latter's role as caregiver to the family and hence her inclusion in the family portrait. Despite the responsibility of her position, this woman was probably a slave. Her emotional separation from the family is emphasized in the group's body language: the girls lean toward their corpulent father, while the small, old woman sits just beside the small child's chair, her crossed hands in her lap revealing multiple rings that hint at familial connections of her own.
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