Historical Indulgences

ca. 1860-90, [cabinet card, portrait of a frame maker with his tools], A. L. Walline

via Be-Hold Fine Photographs

ca. 1860-90’s, [tintype portrait of a bearded carpenter or shipwright, smoking a pipe, and holding a large square, compass, and the head of a large adze. A saw also leans against his leg]

via Be-hold, Fine Photographs

ca. 1860’s-80’s, [tintype occupational portrait of a pair of mechanics holding wrenches]

via Cowan’s Auctions

ca. 1855, [daguerreotype portrait of a dentist with his tools and a patient]

via the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery

ca. 1860-80’s, [occupational tintype portrait of a pair of plumbers with a variety of tools at their feet]

via Cowan’s Auctions

ca. 1840-60, [daguerreotype portrait of two gentlemen, one with a saw, the other, a hammer]

via Harvard University’s Houghton Library, Department of Printing and Graphic Art, Harrison D. Horblit Collection of Early Photography

ca. 1880-90’s, [tintype portrait of a gentleman with his stereoview camera]

via Cowan’s Auctions

ca. 1860’s, [ambrotype portrait of a young English student with his microscope]

via Stereographica, Antique Photographica

ca. 1860-70’s, [tintype portrait of two women posed with a camera box]

via Cowan’s Auctions

ca. 1870-80’s, [cabinet card, occupational portrait of a miner with his equipment], J.W. Wilder

via Cowan’s Auction

ca. 1840-60, [daguerreotype portrait of a watchmaker with his tools]

via the Library of Congress, Daguerreotype Collection

ca. 1850-61, [daguerreotype portrait of a tinworker working with a mallet, snips, compass, and metal cylinder], A. Bogardus

via the Library of Congress, Daguerreotype Collection

ca. 1860-80’s, [occupational tintype portrait of a silversmith with his tools, showing off a few spoons]

via Crow Creek Unique, Etsy

ca. 1875, [albumen portrait of Mohan Lal with His Camera]

The subject here is likely the painter-photographer Mohan Lal, posing with his camera and holding the lens cover in his hand. A number of Mohan Lal’s pictures are documented in the Udaipur City Palace photographic archives. Most courts either maintained a photographer in the same manner that court painters were employed in the household, or else, they increasingly turned to the services of commercial photographic studios, which arose rapidly in India.

via the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photographs Collection

ca. 1860, [ambrotype portrait of a young cricketer with bat and glove], Wm. Bellham

via Bloomsbury Auctions