Framing Fuller: The Daguerreotype

Photo by Sonia Di Loreto, Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University.

The only known and documented daguerreotype of Margaret Fuller is in the "Images of the Channing, Fuller, and Loring Families, circa 1850-1887" (MS Am 2593, Houghton Library, Harvard University).

It was presented in memory of Margaret Fuller Channing Loring by her granddaughter, Charlotte Loring Lowell (Mrs. Ralph Lowell) and received in 1960. The donor was the great-grandchild of William Ellery Channing 2nd and Ellen Kilshaw Fuller Channing.

This is the description in the Houghton Library's finding aid: "Fuller, Margaret, 1810-1850. Half-length seated portrait :
daguerreotype in case (with cover missing), before 1850. 1 item in 2 folders ; 12 x 11 centimeters.Date: 1850. Depicts Fuller seated, with left hand touching left side of head, elbow on desk and looking down at a book. White shawl covers both shoulders. Right side of face is shown with braided hair wrapped around exposed ear."