In the Eye of the Beholder: My 18th Century
Today's post is something of a digression, but bear with me if you can. People often ask why I am so fascinated with the 18th century, and history in general. There is no one short answer to the question, but if pushed I would say, 'the people' and I use the objects and documents to get to them.
Sometimes I'm stopped in my tracks by words or images that encapsulate the appeal of history for me and they might not even be from Georgian London. This image of Robert Cornelius standing outside his Philadelphia shop in 1839 is one of the earliest surviving daguerreotypes from America. He was 30 (and so born in my period of interest, or that's my excuse), and experimenting with the new equipment in the autumn sun. The survival of this extraordinary image closes a gap of almost two centuries with a bang. Cornelius isn't some styled dandy approving every brushstroke of a portrait or a miniature: he's just a bloke standing in the street trying out his new camera.
