Daniel Webster (1782-1852), Class of 1801

Inscriptions

Inscribed: 22 April 1850, of age 68-?

Label

Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes opened a daguerreotype portrait studio together in Boston in 1843 and quickly became the favored photographers of celebrities. Unlike many studios working in the nascence of daguerreotype technology, Southworth & Hawes considered their work high art. They used nuanced lighting and highly individualized poses to create likenesses that were accurate, sympathetic, and visually satisfying.

Southworth and Hawes donated this daguerreotype of Daniel Webster, Class of 1801, to the College in 1850, already recognizing by this date his historical importance to Dartmouth. Its distinctive full-profile view, taken at close range, emphasizes Webster’s large cranium, nobly bald pate, and commanding presence, as he stares ahead with the serious expression expected of a distinguished statesman. Portraits such as this one fulfilled the public desire for visual representations of the famous, while allowing the sitter to reveal, in the concreteness of the daguerreotype, the “inner character” of his or her being.

From the 2019 exhibition American Art, Colonial to Modern, curated by Barbara J. MacAdam, Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art

Course History

ARTH 48.02, History of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Winter 2020

Art History 48.02, Histories of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Spring 2024

Exhibition History

American Art, Colonial to Modern, Israel Sack Gallery and Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26-July 21, 2019.

American Photography: 1850-1980, Barrows and Lower Jewett Corridor, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 26-May 20,1982.

American Works on Paper to 1950: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Friends and Owen Robertson Cheatham Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 22-December 9, 2007.

Art and the Excited Spirit: America in the Romantic Period, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 19-May 14, 1972, no. 27.

Arts Education Program, Wilson Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 1982.

Fred Wilson, So Much Trouble in the World - Believe It or Not!, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 4-December 11, 2005.

Portraits at Dartmouth, Jaffe-Friede Galery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 10-April 16, 1978.

Signs of Modern Life: Photographs from the Collections of Jane and Raphael Bernstein and Dartmouth College, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 13-October 25, 1998.

The Object World, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, ARTH2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 5-March 15, 2015.

Publication History

Andy Grundberg, How to Read a Photograph, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine: Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 1999, pp. 40-43, ill. p. 41.

David C. King, Norman McRae, Jaye Zola, The United States and Its People, Menlo Park, California : Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995, ill. p. 228

David King, The United States and Its People: A History, Menlo Park: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1993.

George Hill Evans, Catalogue of Portraits and other works of art in the gallery of Dartmouth College, Hanover: Dartmouth College, 1901, p. 23, no. 60d.

David Carew Huntington, Art and the Excited Spirit: America in the Romantic Period, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Musuem of Art, 1972, p. 40, no. 121, plate 29.

Lauren B. Hewes, Portraits in the Collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts: American Antiquarian Society, 2004, pp. 359-364, ill. pp. 363.

Arthur R. Blumenthal, Portraits at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1978, p. 65, no. 57.

Barbara Thompson, Fred Wilson, So Much Trouble in the World - Believe It or Not!, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2005.

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 168, no. 138.

Provenance

The artists, Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes; given to present collection, 1856.

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