Quarter-plate portrait daguerreotype. New York: Samuel Root (363 Broadway), ca. mid-1850s. Stamped photographer's imprint in lower right corner of the mat: "ROOT / 363 BROADWAY / N.Y." Housed in a full embossed leatherette case.

A sweet and technically accomplished antebellum portrait executed by renowned New York daguerreotypist Samuel Root (1819 - 1889). Posed seated upon a studio chair, a young girl is captured full-length in three-quarter profile, wearing a short-sleeved, high-waisted gingham check day dress with white stockings and dark shoes. Resting at her feet is a broad-brimmed straw sun hat profusely trimmed with silk ribbon and floral sprays.

Samuel Root, alongside his brother Marcus Aurelius Root, was among the foremost practitioners in Manhattan's competitive Broadway photographic district, operating his celebrated gallery at 363 Broadway between 1849 and 1857. Studio portraits of young children presented challenges given the requisite exposure times, and well-composed quarter-plate examples bearing Root’s stamped Broadway mat imprint remain prized examples of early American daguerreian art.

[Daguerreotype, Quarter Plate, Juvenile Portrait, Child, Girl, Gingham Dress, Sun Hat, Straw Bonnet, Samuel Root, Root Gallery, 363 Broadway, New York, Cased Image, 1850s Photography, Antebellum Portraiture]

Very good condition overall. The plate exhibits fine clarity, smooth tones, and balanced contrast. The plate surface shows scattered pinpoint dusting and  very faint peripheral tarnish along the extreme right margins.