Poe Daguerreotype Sells at Sotheby’s for $150,000

Poe daguerreotype by William PrattAt $10,859 per square inch, William A. Pratt is seriously commanding the moolah for his work. A 1849 quarter-plate copy daguerreotype of poet Edgar Allan Poe sold at Sotheby’s on 10-17-2006 for $150,000 against a $30-50,000 estimate.

Considering that this is the second image of Poe to appear at auction in over 100 years, I’m frankly surprised that this portrait didn’t claim a higher bounty.
Incidentally, I’m available to make copy daguerreotypes for museums and private collections.  Perhaps I will start charging by the square inch.  That seems to have worked for Sotheby’s.

-Jonathan

This entry was posted in Daguerreotypes, News & Events. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Poe Daguerreotype Sells at Sotheby’s for $150,000

  1. Phillip G. Billings says:

    I have several-50+-daguerreotypes, all portraits. Is there a website that assists in determining whether any of these are of known individuals ?

    I do have an ambrotype of civil war General Burnside. I was informed by the Smithsonian years ago that there were many copies made. Nonetheless, is it of any significant value ?

    I also have numerous other ambrotypes, including a few non portraits.

    Also many tintypes including many civil war era military, the latter all portraits.

    Lastly, I have a 60 or so collection of “hard cases”.

    I am interested in determining the value of all of the above.

    Thank you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>