Lot 52: Portrait of Edward John Dent, late 1840s Antoine Jean François Claudet (French, 1797-1867)

Antoine Jean François Claudet (French, 1797-1867)
Half-plate daguerreotype, sealed, cased. The upper cover with Claudet's '18 King William St' studio stamp in gilt.
Together with a carte-de-visite portrait of Dent by J. Beard, albumen print, mounted on card. The reverse of the mount inscribed 'Grandpa Dent / Edward John Dent' in pencil and credited to Beard's Old Bond Street, Bath, studio. The case 18.5 x 16cm (7.25 x 6.25in.)

There are only two known images of Edward John Dent in existence. Both are illustrated in Mercer: Edward John Dent and his successors, London 1977, the frontispiece and plate 52. The former was drawn by Baugnut in 1853, two years after Dents death and it quite possible that Baugnut worked from this very image.

Antoine F.S. Claudet (1797-1867) worked from 18 King William Street from 1847 through to June 1851.

The carte de visite that sits with this daguerrotype is inscribed on the back 'Grandpa Dent, Edward John Dent'. Although Dent fathered no children himself, he adopted his wife's children and it is calculated that up to 15 children would have referred to him as Grandpa. Beard was based in 8 Old Bond Steet, Bath from 1868 to 1872 and so this card must be a copy of an earlier family photograph.

Mercer mentions that on 21 January 1850 Otto Willhelm von Struve of the Imperial Observatory at Pulkovo near St Petersburg, wrote asking for a picture from which his daughter Sophia might form an idea of who her god-father is. Struve added, "If you will send me one, I promise that I will send you a daguerroeotype of her, as far as she will be able to sit quietly for half a minute...." It is quite concievable that given this inspiration, Dent duly went to Claudets premises in King William Street and sat for a number of portraits of which this is the only recorded survivor.