Sixth-plate studio daguerreotype. N.p., ca. early-to-mid 1850s. Housed in a  leatherette case.

An outstanding and animated composition capturing a young boy and girl seated inside an open four-wheeled wooden wagon, hitched to a matched team of two horned goats. The boy is outfitted in light trousers, a dark jacket, and a visor cap, holding the reins beside his sister, who wears a wide-brimmed bonnet and patterned dress. The goats stand harnessed in tandem with leather tack and shaft traces. The studio operator has applied subtle hand-coloring throughout, notably delicate green and earth-toned tints across the ground beneath the wagon wheels and hooves.

Goat carts were popular 19th-century luxury conveyances and park amusements for well-to-do children, but managing two live animals alongside young sitters under slow daguerreian exposure speeds made this an extraordinarily ambitious (and successful) undertaking for an operator!

[Daguerreotype, Sixth Plate, Hand-Tinted, Goats, Goat Cart, Goat Wagon, Carriage, Team of Goats, Brother and Sister, Children, Bonnet, Visor Cap, Transportation, Folk Art, Cased Image, 1850s Photography, Antebellum Americana]

Good to very good condition. The focal clarity and overall contrast is strong. The plate surface exhibits two circular solarization halos in the upper right background field and iridescent perimeter tarnish along the left arch and upper margins.