Not Mrs. F.
MRS. FLETCHER,
PROFESSOR AND TEACHER OF THE
PHOTOGENIC ART.RESPECTFULLY announces that she is prepared to execute Daguerreotype Miniatures in a style unsurpassed by any American or European artist. Those who have never enjoyed an opportunity of examining the Photogenic process, or a specimen of the art, cannot form an adequate idea of the extreme perfection, beauty, and wonderful minuteness of the
DAGUERROTYPE PICTURES.These are truly “the pencillings of nature,” the production of minutes or seconds, as perfect as the imagination can conceive. As the object looks at the moment it is taken, so is the representation.
The Plate, a blank void, becomes filled up with all the fairy lines and graceful symmetry of a picture, more perfect than the most exquisite designed engraving affording another beautiful example that the art of man cannot be compared to the works of nature and of nature’s God.
Ladies and Gentlemen are invited to call and examine specimens of the art, next door to the Union Bank, Place d’ Armes, where Mrs. F. is constantly in attendance.
Sept. 16, 1841.
Advertisement from the Montreal Transcript as quoted in Canadian Women’s Studies, vol. 2, no. 3 (1980) p. 7
It’s difficult to describe the effect of a daguerreotype. It is a mirror with a stain quite unlike the typical “picture.” The void is filled with reflections of the viewer as well as the subject. Viewers must get past themselves to the image underneath.
