Help with dating photo, please

[jjq]

I am trying to identify the lady in the photo which is also shown in my profile. This photo is on glass - about one and a half inches by 3 inches. The reverse is painted black.

Family stories say it is my great grandmother - Jemima Wells nee Quarry (1871 - 1958), who had children from 1893 / 1909.
I am beginning to have doubts - and wonder if it could be her mother Ann Quarry nee Stone (1853 - 1938).

I have a photo which includes both ladies c1920 - which I will post if it can help?

[PrueM]

This is called an Ambrotype in America (after its inventor) but it's more properly called a "Collodion positive on glass".  They were popular in the 1850s but because they were quite expensive not many people could afford them...around 1860 the technology of using a negative to print onto paper was introduced, and daguerreotypes (on metal) and collodion-on-glass went out of use quite quickly.

You are very lucky to have one of these, they are often broken because they are on brittle old glass.  It looks in good nick, too.  If it's not already in a case with a lid, get a conservator to make you a housing for it, and assess its condition for you.  It's worth protecting!

So in summary:  before about 1860-65.  If it is someone in the family you mention, it's probably not your g-g-grandmother, but HER mother, with her as a baby.  Does that help?

Prue

[jjq]

Well, it helps in a way - it confirms it is not who the family say it is!!

The family lived in a small Hertfordshire village, so they may have been "behind the times" with photographic technology. So if it is not Anne Quarry (who had children from 1872), her mother Anne Stone nee Smith(!) - 1828 - 1883 - whom we know very little of, and have no other photographs.

This photo is the only one we have of its kind. It was in a wooden photo frame that it obviously did not belong to, with a folded pice of newspaper behind it. The newspaper is 1930's so there was no help there!

All the other photos we have date from about 1906 - glued into an album 

Thank you for your help - as to a conservator , where would I be able to find one?

[PrueM]

If you have a look in the link "Conservation of Photos and Documents" at the top of the Photo Restoration board, you'll find some links to sites where you can locate a conservator in your area (hopefully!)

Prue

[jjq]

Thanks for your reply - and sorry not to have acknowledged it sooner.

There doesn't seem to be anyone local - but I will follow this up. Thank you once again.


Jan