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Erie, Pa.: Observer Office Print, [ca. 1850]. Broadside, 11.75” x 9.875”, text within ornamental border. Completed in ink. CONDITION: Very good, one faint central and three horizontal creases, toning to lower quarter.

An appealing and apparently unrecorded broadside advertising the services of a traveling daguerreotypist in northwestern Pennsylvania for “a few days” around April 17th, 1850.

“Prof. Wm. P. Bassett” announces his arrival “to the Ladies and Gentlemen of this place and vicinity”—that is, the town of Columbus, most likely not in Ohio but in Pennsylvania, about thirty-five miles south of Erie, where the broadside was printed. Bassett’s gallery offers “the most approved style of the Daguerrean process,” including a “perfect” ability to capture “light hair and eyes” thanks to his use of “one of the costliest and best achromatic lens.” Would-be sitters are advised that “Ladies should always dress in the dark,” gentlemen should wear dark cravats, and “Plaids give the best pictures.”

In addition to studio portraits, the broadside advertises “views of buildings on a large scale…on the shortest notice”; “portraits of deceased persons” (“Those only who have lost near relations can duly appreciate these imperishable relics”); and the encasing of oil paintings, “ornamented Pictures, Landscapes, or Miniatures” in frames, lockets, etc. Finally, “Prof.” Bassett recommends the daguerrean business to any “Young gentlemen wishing to travel for improvement or pleasure,” and announces his readiness to “give instruction and furnish Apparatus of the latest construction to those who may wish.”

William P. Bassett is unrecorded in Craig’s Daguerreian Registry online, and we find no trace of him in contemporary newspapers.

No examples recorded in OCLC.

Rare evidence of an otherwise unrecorded itinerant daguerreotypist active in and around Erie, Pennsylvania.

Item #10189

Price: $1,250.00