Double Take: Paired Daguerreain Portrait Pairs

Highlighting the depth of the National Portrait Gallery’s early-photography collection, this exhibition will showcase 14 daguerreotypes —two portraits each— of seven subjects: George Bancroft, Jenny Lind, Zachary Taylor, Frederick Douglass, Jefferson Davis, Daniel Webster, and John Quincy Adams. One loan—a daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams from the National Museum of American History—will supplement the Gallery’s collection.

By featuring two portraits of each famous sitter, the exhibition considers the ways in which various daguerreotypists approached the same subject and how different the results could be. In addition to discussing the early history of portrait photography, the accompanying text compares images made for public consumption with those produced as personal keepsakes.