id: 172558 accession number: 2015.51 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2015.51 updated: 2024-03-26 02:01:46.278000 Somebody's Luggage (Miniature Wedding Album of Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren), c. 1863. Mathew Brady (American, 1823–1896). Brass photographic locket with 12 miniature albumen prints; overall: 2.7 x 2 x 1 cm (1 1/16 x 13/16 x 3/8 in.); each: 2.3 x 2 cm (7/8 x 13/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Herbert Ascherman, Jr. 2015.51 title: Somebody's Luggage (Miniature Wedding Album of Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren) title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1863 creation date earliest: 1858 creation date latest: 1868 current location: creditline: Gift of Herbert Ascherman, Jr. copyright: --- culture: America, 19th century technique: brass photographic locket with 12 miniature albumen prints department: Photography collection: PH - American 19th Century type: Jewelry find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Mathew Brady (American, 1823–1896) - artist Mathew Brady American, 1823 - 1896 Mathew B. Brady was born in Lake George, New York, where he received instruction in art from itinerant painter William Page. He is said to have been introduced to daguerreotyping by Samuel F. B. Morse, the American portraitist and inventor, who was a friend of Page and an early advocate of photography. Brady is believed to have also studied with John W. Draper, another important American daguerrean pioneer. While Brady is best known today for his Civil War work, he was also among the most successful portraitists of his time. He first opened a studio in New York City in 1844, then a Washington studio in 1847, and two others in New York in 1853 and 1860. Ever aware of history and celebrity, as early as 1845 he conceived an ambitious series of published portraits to be called The Gallery of Illustrious Americans. The lithographed images, derived from Brady's daguerreotypes and accompanied by explanatory texts, drew attention and acclaim, and initiated his association with celebrated sitters. The series, however, failed to receive adequate backing for completion. Like many commercial photographers, Brady employed "operators" -- technicians and artists who worked with him and often took his pictures. Brady and other photographic entrepreneurs took responsibility for overseeing their studios, marketing prints, and devoting themselves to their most important clients and images. It was Brady's innovation, at the outbreak of the Civil War, to outfit and send a number of talented operators into the field. The thousands of negatives produced of the war's great generals and battlefields by Brady's firm are thus usually not the work of the famed photographer himself, but rather that of George S. Cook, Alexander Gardner, Levin Handy, Michael Miley, and Timothy O'Sullivan. Nevertheless, Brady played a key role in envisioning and executing the immense enterprise of photographing the Civil War. For example, he produced a number of portraits of Abraham Lincoln, who avowed that without Brady to present him to the American public, he would have had considerably greater difficulty becoming known. T.W.F. --- measurements: Overall: 2.7 x 2 x 1 cm (1 1/16 x 13/16 x 3/8 in.); Each: 2.3 x 2 cm (7/8 x 13/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Cheating Death: Portrait Photography’s First Half Century opening date: 2016-10-22T04:00:00 Cheating Death: Portrait Photography’s First Half Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 22, 2016-February 5, 2017). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Herbert Ascherman, Jr., acquired 2014 date: footnotes: citations: Private collection, Cleveland, acquired 2011 date: footnotes: citations: Private collection, location unknown date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2015.51/2015.51_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2015.51/2015.51_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2015.51/2015.51_full.tif