Lot 22: ALBERT SANDS SOUTHWORTH (1811-1894) and JOSIAH JOHNSON HAWES (1808-1901)

ALBERT SANDS SOUTHWORTH (1811-1894) and JOSIAH JOHNSON HAWES (1808-1901)
Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, c. 1870
mammoth albumen print enlargement from a daguerreotype original
20¾ x 16 3/8in. (52.7 x 41.1cm.)

With John Craig, Connecticut

THE MILLER-PLUMMER COLLECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHS

Lemuel Shaw (1781-1861) drafted the first municipal charter for Boston in 1822, which remained in effect until 1913. In 1830 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, where his rulings over a period of thirty years were formative in the development of both Massachusetts and national jurisprudence.
This powerful portrait of Shaw was an albumen print enlargement from an existing daguerreotype by Southworth and Hawes, now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (illustrated right). When Chief Justice Shaw arrived at the 5½ Tremont Row studio to have his portrait made by the Boston partnership of Southworth and Hawes, he happened to stand directly under a skylight that dramatically illuminated his imposing figure from above. The photographers quickly moved their equipment to him, and the resulting image perfectly captured the man who embodied, in the words of the Boston Transcript, 'the absolute power of a crag vitalized by a human spirit.'