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Artist
Alexander Gardner, 17 Oct 1821 - 10 Dec 1882
Sitter
Alexander Gardner, 17 Oct 1821 - 10 Dec 1882
Date
c. 1864
Type
Photograph
Medium
Albumen silver print
Dimensions
Image/Sheet: 8.6 x 5.4cm (3 3/8 x 2 1/8")
Mount: 10.1 x 6.1cm (4 x 2 3/8")
Mat: 35.6 × 27.9cm (14 × 11")
Topic
Home Furnishings\Furniture\Seating\Chair
Photographic format\Carte-de-visite
Self-portrait
Interior\Studio\Photography
Alexander Gardner: Male
Alexander Gardner: Visual Arts\Artist\Photographer
Alexander Gardner: Visual Arts\Artist\Photographer\War photographer
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Object number
NPG.2002.87
Exhibition Label
In place of the wild and woolly frontiersman as Gardner pictured himself in his first, c. 1861, self-portrait, this image shows him nattily attired and posed with the props of Victorian furnishings as the epitome of respectability. Leaning against the chair, with a hand on his hip and legs crossed at the ankle, Gardner is casually masterful. By 1864 he was at the height of his Civil War career, a career founded on his Antietam photographs and solidified by the opening of his Washington studio, the popularity of the Gettysburg images, and a reputation as the president’s favorite photographer.
For reasons that remain mysterious, Gardner retired from photography in 1872 and went into the insurance business; he died a decade later, leaving no records except his photographs themselves.