Nineteenth century photographs

Napoleon Sarony (1821-1896) opened a portrait studio in New York in 1867 after working previously as a lithographer for Nathaniel Currier (of Currier & Ives). He is most known for his celebrity portraits, especially of theatrical people. It was claimed that he photographed virtually every star of the New York stage over a period of thirty years, and that he had more than 40,000 negatives of show business personalities in his possession at his death.He paid well-known literary, artistic, and even political figures (as well as the stars of the stage that he specialized in) to pose for him, then sold carte de visites—postcard-sized prints—to the public. (This image is a bit larger than actual size.)
     

     
Portraits

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), a Quaker, an abolitionist and a founder of the Republican party, was also one of the most celebrated American poets of the post Civil War era. His most famous poems are Snow-bound, Maud Muller, and Barbara Fritchie. This was probably taken in the late 1870s.
     Literary figures were not as popular with Americans as military ones, but there is scarcely any literary figure of any significance (alive after the mid-1840s) for whom we do not have a photographic image.
     Note the limited depth-of-field—the beard is quite sharp but the hair by his ears is fuzzy. Many of Sarony's theatrical subjects are posed with props (chairs, chaise lounges, tables) but his literary figures are often taken quite tight and with plain backgrounds.