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a brass founder. Shortly thereafter he joined his father in
the lamp business. Cornelius & Co. became one of the
largest importers of gas lamps in the country, providing
fi xtures for the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, as well
as other state capitols and public buildings.
Robert Cornelius was one of the fi rst Americans
to experiment with the daguerreotype process. Details
of the process were available in the United States one
month after Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre’s announce-
ment of his invention to the public in Paris on 19 August
- Already a center for scientifi c research, Philadel-
phia was home to many people who experimented with
the daguerreotype process. Cornelius adapted skills
from the lighting business—polishing metal and plating
silver—to the practice of making daguerreotypes. His
interest in the daguerreotype may have been stimulated
by the hard economic times of the early 1840s that fol-
lowed the fi nancial panic of 1837 when a lag in business
would have afforded Cornelius time to experiment with
this new photographic process.
In September or October of 1839, Joseph Saxton, an
employee of the U. S. Mint and pioneer photographer,
asked Cornelius to produce silver-coated copper plates
for his daguerreotype experiments. After this request,
Cornelius began to make his own daguerreotypes, fash-
ioning a camera from a tin box and an opera lens. In
October or November of 1839, he made a self-portrait
that is considered one of the marvels of early photogra-
phy. Working outdoors in sunlight to minimize exposure
time, Cornelius placed his camera on a sturdy support,
removed the lens cover, sat still for several minutes, and
then replaced the lens cover. The resulting daguerreo-
type shows Cornelius slightly off-center with his hair
askew, eyeing the camera warily. Considered the earli-
est extant photographic portrait in America, it is in the
collection of the Library of Congress.
Cornelius set the earliest standard for daguerreotype
portraiture in America. In May 1840, he opened one of
the fi rst daguerreotype studios in Philadelphia, along
with his partner Paul Beck Goddard, a chemist at the
University of Pennsylvania. At a time when many people
thought daguerreotype portraiture was impossible,
Cornelius produced sixth-plate daguerreotypes with a
camera that used a short, fast lens. Goddard improved
the daguerreotype process by using bromine in addition
to iodine to sensitize the plates, which allowed portraits
to be made in a matter of seconds rather than minutes.
The Cornelius studio, on Eighth Street, above Chest-
nut, Philadelphia, had a southern exposure. A large
mirror attached horizontally to one of the windows
refl ected light onto another mirror set at an angle to il-
luminate the sitter’s face. A piece of light purple glass
suspended from the ceiling softened the light. Typically,
Cornelius’s sitters faced the camera directly. Using this
system, he produced evenly lit, bust-length portraits.
An article in the 5 September 1840 Botanico-Medical
Recorder provides a description of a portrait sitting in
the Cornelius studio:“... as it is only necessary to sit about a minute; till the sun
has, by his powerful pencil, transfi xed every lineament
of your features, with all their beauties and blemishes, in
imperishable lines upon the plate of silver.” Cornelius’s
early portraits were devoid of props, but later sittings
include a small table used by sitters as an arm rest.Leading Philadelphia businessmen and scientists
patronized the Cornelius studio, paying fi ve dollars per
portrait. Cornelius photographed the scientist Martin
Hans Boye several times over a two-year period pro-
ducing unusual studies, including two portraits of Boye
reading a book, and images showing Boye conducting
scientifi c experiments. These portraits show a mastery
of the daguerreotype medium.
In addition to portraits, one street scene by Cornelius
is known to exist. His view of Eighth and Market Streets,
Philadelphia, made circa 1840 is remarkable for its early
use of a mirror or reversing prism to present a laterally
correct image. (Early daguerreotypes produced mirror
images of their subjects.)
Early Cornelius daguerreotypes can be identifi ed
by their atypical heavy, brass frames that may have
been made in his family’s lamp factory. These pieces
frequently have a paper label with Cornelius’s name and
address attached to the back of the object. Cornelius
developed a metal support for his plates which was
recessed to hold the daguerreotype plate and had a rim
to hold the cover glass above the plate. Later Cornelius
daguerreotypes are housed in traditional cases, usually
with an overall fl oral design, and brass mats stamped
with his name.
Cornelius, along with fellow Philadelphia da-
guerreotypists Paul Beck Goddard, Joseph Saxton, and
Walter Rogers Johnson, received recognition for their
achievements with the daguerreotype process in local
newspapers and at the meetings of the American Philo-
sophical Society and the Franklin Institute. As early as 6
December 1839, Cornelius showed his daguerreotypes
at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society in
Philadelphia. Knowledge of Cornelius’s daguerreo-
types was not limited to the United States. Writing
from England in 1843, John Egerton’s preface to the
translation of Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours A Treatise
on Photography states that “he remembers seeing,
about two years ago, the most beautiful specimens of
the Daguerreotype then in existence, produced by Mr.
Cornelius, of Philadelphia, ...” The plates Egerton saw
were most likely portraits of Philadelphia wigmaker
Augustus Gallet that were sent to France to demonstrate
America’s prowess with the process.
Although Cornelius closed his daguerreotype studio